The Waves of Change Affair
by LaH Carabele
Summary: It's 2007. Napoleon and Illya are both now policymakers for U.N.C.L.E. and have been for some 20 years. Yet their field agent pasts are always with them and one particular old affair springs to new life in the form of a "Thrush technological residual". TIMELINE: Winter 2007 with flashbacks of Summer 1966
1. Part 1

**_Author's Note:_**

_This is my first work of U.N.C.L.E. fan fiction and it came about when thinking of how I might want a new series based on U.N.C.L.E. to be presented. Thus it is set in a current timeframe, with Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin of appropriate ages for that. Both are now policymakers within the organization; yet their past lives as field agents always remain to color the present. This story deals with one incident that illustrates just that point._

_As an additional note here: Though I do not like the lore handed down through THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER AFFAIR, I felt in this particular case to ignore it wouldn't be advisable. Thus, it is part of the agents' backgrounds in this story, but with a very different (and I hope more acceptable) take on the whys and wherefores of what happened at that point in their lives._

**The Waves of Change Affair  
(Part 1)  
**by LaH

_**December 21st, 2007**_  
_**New York City, somewhere in the East 40s…**_

_In the early darkness of the winter night on this street in New York City she stood completely invisible to all others. To those who passed and to those who paused, to everyone and anyone, but most importantly to her erstwhile handlers. They couldn't see her and they weren't monitoring her because that would have been foolish. It might have inhibited the effects of the suit and, even if it didn't, if all went as planned such a device would have set off the suspicion of the others. Such was not be risked. So while she wore the suit, she was free of them, free of everything. This freedom though was fleeting. To pursue anything more she would need to use all her abilities: all she had been taught and all she had been given._

This first step would be the most difficult. It had never really been tested, couldn't be. For this her training was useless, worse: counterproductive. Thus for the moment decades of training had to be ignored. If it worked, she would be as a somnambulist during this beginning phase, and she would not remember what her body had revealed. Only her body would know.

Such a reality made her anxious. The second phase was more to her liking. Then she would be able to use all her persevered training. Then her mind would take over. But for now, she must begin at the beginning. There was no other place to start. She had to trust, as she always had, in the one who had given her this means.

She closed her eyes and attempted to let go completely, let go of all concentration, let go of this surest grounding of herself. Her mind had to drift; she knew that. She had to disengage and let her body react, let her nerves stretch and amplify in their attempt to touch another being who was as of yet utterly unaware of her. Was she in close enough proximity? She didn't know. After all, it had never been tested, couldn't be. The only test would be in this finality.

She modulated her breathing, her last fully conscious act, and then the sensations came: fast and furious.

_A tangential tingling traveled throughout every nerve in the body of a man seated in the upper floor of an office high above the street. It sizzled downward from his neck to his spine to his arms to his legs and finally to his feet. Caught off-guard by the incredibly strange sensation, he tensed for a brief moment._

In the murky street below the woman's nerves prickled and quivered as sweat poured from every square inch of skin where it lay fully hidden beneath the suit. She began to walk, her feet reacting to the pavement as if grasping hold of a living thing. Neural pathways fired at muscles, sense memory taking over, guiding. Where she went she was never to mentally know. Only her body knew with a knowledge that came from beyond itself, from the body of another.

Her body arrived at the required destination without hesitation, without doubt and without anxiety. The necessary procedures were performed and her body continued its forward movement until the last barrier was breached. She came back to herself in a dense blackness and waited to continue onto the second phase.

_The tingling in the man's body subsided and he proceeded to forget all about it, categorizing it -- especially on this day -- as but an unwelcome manifestation of his increasing years._

* * *

**Act I: The more things change, the more they stay the same…**

Napoleon Solo glanced up from the double-file-folder-sized monitor built flat into the surface of his huge, round, revolving desk to the trimly elegant, expensive, 24-carat gold watch on his wrist. 7:20 pm. He needed to wrap up for the day and head home to change for the party. He had vowed faithfully that he wouldn't be late for this affair.

Absently the man smiled to himself as he ran a hand through his mostly silver hair with its dark streaks that stood out as souvenirs from a bold past. This affair. Strange choice of terminology his head had provided. Back in his heyday as a field operative, he had personally dealt with world-shattering "affairs", as they were politely referenced in espionage circles, on a day-to-day basis. He had plotted, reacted, attacked, infiltrated, killed and come close to being killed himself over-and-over again on the frontlines of a war against the enemies of stability and general world order. Back in the bygone days of the Cold War, he and his Russian partner had been an unusual pairing that had served as a potent force against… Evil? Was that the right word to call it? Or could it all be described more accurately if somewhat more poetically with a phrase like "the lack of caring for humanity as a compelling force in its own right"?

The smartly dressed and still handsome elderly man rubbed the fingers of one hand over his forehead. Seventy-five. He was three-quarters of a century old this day. And still he was fighting the same battle. Only now he fought it from behind a desk as Number 1 in Section I, Policy and Operations, of the North American division in the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

An unexpected musing slid into his brain regarding the inane fact that he liked his desk. It was a relic from the past that had been neatly fitted with all the necessities of modernity. Somewhat like himself, he mused further. Then more serious thoughts interjected themselves again.

With the merest flicker of disgust registering in his hazel-brown eyes, Solo mentally acknowledged that Evil, since that was the shorter description of all that insidiously attempted to bring chaos and mayhem into the human condition, never seemed in short supply. It waxed and waned, waxed and waned continually over the years, over the decades, yet somehow always remained.

Napoleon sighed heavily. He had held his current position at U.N.C.L.E. for twenty-two years. Like as not, unless his health failed him, he could and would hold it for perhaps another decade. U.N.C.L.E. didn't believe in enforced retirement for its Section I chiefs, as long as they functioned ably in the job. And Solo functioned more than ably. His personal sphere of power and influence had virtually eclipsed even that of Alexander Waverly, the legendary founder of the organization and wily old fox who had headed U.N.C.L.E. during Napoleon's own salad days as the Chief Enforcement Agent in Section II, Operations and Enforcement.

Solo liked his job, though it was definitely wearing on the spirit. He wholeheartedly believed in the ironically peaceful (considering the often non-peaceful means needed to assure it) directive of U.N.C.L.E. He believed in the ideals of good and right and justice and all of that. Still, he did sometimes wish that all the Evil in the world would just go away, fade into the background of time and become not even much of a memory.

At that precise moment in his intellectual wanderings, the pneumatic door connecting his office to the full inner dynamics of U.N.C.L.E. slid open. Solo broke his attention from his internal reverie as the open portal heralded the arrival of Illya Kuryakin, his one-time partner, always friend, and now the current North American division's Number 1 in Section III, Enforcement & Intelligence.

"You assured Trice on all the graves of every U.N.C.L.E. operative ever lost to Thrush that you would not arrive late tonight, Napoleon," the other man chastised in English accented with a European burr barely discernible as to origin any longer.

Napoleon smirked. "I do tend to make elaborate promises, don't I?" he chided himself.

"In the fine art of exaggeration, you are indeed a connoisseur," agreed Kuryakin.

Then both men smiled easily, an ease borne of years of friendship and trust. Nothing had ever broken that between them and nothing ever would.

"I notice though that you are still puttering about at the office as well, Illya," Napoleon remarked wryly. "Aren't you going to be too late to help out the little lady with all the last minute details of my birthday festivity?"

"You know I am not proficient at handling this kind of social affair," the other man brushed aside the teasing probe.

Affair… There was that word again. Seemingly innocuous, and yet…

"Trice would say I was just in the way," Illya further noted with a shrug. "And it certainly does not take me the same amount of time to get decked out in formal evening finery as it does you, Napoleon," he poked fun at his friend's fastidious sense of style.

Trice was Kuryakin's wife of two-dozen years, an even-tempered, magnificently intelligent, finely featured woman fourteen years her husband's junior. Illya's age was just less than a year shy of Napoleon's own, so Trice was not a young woman anymore either. Still, she remained understatedly attractive and, back when Illya had married her, she had been unassumingly stunning, a carefree beauty in full flush.

"Besides," continued Illya; "since I presumed you would finally be alone at this hour, I thought maybe we could talk… about Natasha."

The Kuryakin couple had not been youngsters when they had wed. As a result they had only one child, Napoleon's goddaughter aptly named Natasha in his honor.

Napoleon chuckled. "Later, Illya," he forestalled his friend, "we can argue about Natasha later."

"She is just out of Survival School, Napoleon," the other man stubbornly attempted to pursue the subject anyhow.

Solo raised one finger in warning. "Having graduated top in her class," he unnecessarily reminded his friend. "From now on, she's an Enforcement Agent, Illya," he pronounced in his most authoritative Section I, Number 1 voice, "and one with some of the best potential I've ever encountered. I'm not going to coddle her, and honestly you know that deep down you don't want me to do that either."

"What I want is for her to live to see her twenty-fifth birthday," muttered Kuryakin discontentedly.

"Illya, I'm living to see my seventy-fifth," the other man reminded his Russian colleague. "The world is full of wonders."

Kuryakin sighed in defeat. "We will talk later about this, Napoleon," he pledged in a deadpan voice and with a steady look in his ice-blue eyes that left no doubt as to his steely determination in this particular matter.

Solo nodded. "We will. Simple promise this time, Illya; nothing elaborate." And then he smiled one of those enormous, spirit-lifting smiles of his, filling the room with a sense of warmth that spread right into the heart of the other man.

_"Disarmed again by the Solo charm," thought Kuryakin ruefully to himself. "Why has he always been able to do that so effortlessly?"_

"Go home and get ready for the party, Napoleon," Illya now verbally pressed in frustrated defeat for the moment. "Trice has been planning this forever."

Solo nodded again. "Just about on my way, Illya. One more report I have to peruse first. I'll meet you at the restaurant right on time, don't worry."

Illya nodded his wordless acquiescence and made his way out of the office, the pneumatic door sliding shut behind him with a gentle whoosh.

Becoming again absorbed in the file regarding the details of the upcoming Russian Arms Affair, as it was being discreetly referenced in all official documents, the U.N.C.L.E. chief lost all concept of time. This would be a tricky assignment requiring a half-dozen enforcement agents for the main thrust, not to mention dozens of back-up personnel. Already two agents, one in Moscow and one here in New York, were daily risking their lives as infiltrators within the dangerous world of the Russian Mafia. The operation had already taken over five months of groundwork investigation and planning, and the agents involved in the final assault were currently in the midst of receiving a full month of special indoctrination. All this was in preparation to intercept a shipment of high-tech arms from the Russian underbelly group to Thrush. It wouldn't be the first such shipment, but U.N.C.L.E. intended it to be the last. However, something about the whole setup just didn't lay right with Solo. Of course the weaponry involved went far above normal grade armaments, some of it being highly experimental and exceedingly rare, and thus of particular interest to Thrush. Still, a tugging in his gut, a feeling honed from years in the spy business, told Napoleon this was more than it seemed, though thus far there hadn't been anything to confirm that intuition of his.

The luminous dial of his watch captured Solo's attention once more. "Damn!" he exclaimed unhappily. Nearly three-quarters of an hour had passed since Illya had left him. He would indeed be late for his own birthday party.

"Well, at least it's considered more socially acceptable than being late for your own funeral," mused Napoleon aloud with a half-smirk.

Inexplicably, a shiver rustled along his spine at his own cavalier remark. Shrugging off the unexpected sensation of foreboding, Solo tapped the touch screen of the monitor, powering it off, and then brushed one hand quickly over the flat surface. A panel slid out and covered the monitor, hiding it discreetly under wood that identically matched the rest of the desk. The fittings of the integral component into the desk were so expertly concealed that, if one did not know the exact spot where this monitor hid from ready view and prying eyes, one would be hard-pressed to discover it by simple physical examination. And the monitor was not the only such electronic component well masked within the desk's construction.

Rising from his chair and casually knocking the back of one hand against an open panel in the desk that lowered the lighting in the office down to a mere infrared security glow, Napoleon walked to the room's closet and retrieved his overcoat. Tossing the well-tailored garment over one arm, he headed toward the portion of the wall that housed a secret passage leading via a doglegged maze of intricate tunnels from this office both to the underground garage via one route and to a clandestine location via another. He tilted ever so slightly to the right the setting of the star sapphire in his pinky ring, activating the hidden panel. It opened into darkness, but Solo knew his way through the maze intimately and thus required no light to guide him.

Before stepping surely into the blackness, however, Solo sought out the yellow triangle engraved with the number 11 that was pinned in its usual spot on his lapel. He had almost forgotten to remove his access badge, something he wouldn't need to traverse the tunnel maze without any trespass alarm sounding. Retinal scans situated at various intervals within the subterranean proper provided the safety precautions for passage through that private area of HQ. And no badge was actually necessary within the interior confines of the chief's office, rather only in the other rooms and open corridors of U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon and the other denizens of the multinational organization kept their badges in place inside his office as a matter of convenience, since those titanium-alloy IDs would be needed to exit again into the main hub of headquarters. However, when the chief chose his private entry through the tunnel maze as a departure point, his badge was stored in a small, well-hidden, fingerprint-lock enabled drawer under the surface of the so-much-more-than-it-seemed desk. It would be retrieved by Solo upon his return to the office, and his secretary would subsequently refresh the chemical on its yellow surface to insure its potency for the new day's security access.

Napoleon turned back into the full expanse of the office interior, intending to unlock the drawer in question and properly deposit his badge for the night. He had not yet performed that routine action when he remembered a moment too late that Section V schooled him eternally not to leave the hidden passage accessible for even so much as an extra half-minute. Thus, with his back now to the opening, Napoleon tilted the gem setting in his ring to the left, closing the passage just as a flash of something, he couldn't say what, caught in the periphery of his vision.

He turned fully to thoroughly scan the area behind him. Nothing there. Nothing at all. Cautiously he let his eyes roam the entirety of the red-lit interior space. A shimmer of something, a faint ripple like an undulating wave of dim light, hooked his vision again. He rubbed his eyes; then squinted hard. Still nothing there.

With a shake of his head and mentally cursing the fact he might finally need more than occasional reading glasses after all these years of generally excellent eyesight, Napoleon sought out the desk to pop the lock on the specifically purposed hidden compartment under the wooden surface.

"You will open the wall panel again please, Mr. Solo," commanded a female voice, silkily smooth and in a tone of perfect control.

Napoleon spun, but saw no one, nothing. He pressed his fingertips over the controls for the lighting, spreading the room in a bright and uncompromising flood of fluorescent illumination. Still he saw no one, nothing. Was the voice being broadcast into the room over some kind of electronic device?

"You will open the wall panel again please," the voice repeated evenly. And this time Napoleon recognized a faint accent to the perfectly enunciated English words. Swedish? Norwegian? Definitely Scandinavian his finely tuned ears confirmed.

"Now why would I do that?" questioned Napoleon somewhat wryly.

It was likely, though the partition was actually soundproof, that the voice was being broadcast somehow through the barrier itself. And equally as likely that the unknown entity addressing him so coolly stood just inside that blackness beyond the panel, ready to make a hair-trigger assault once provided proper opportunity.

"Because it is in your nature to take the risk so to satisfy your curiosity," the female insisted.

Her tone remained so utterly controlled and unharried that Solo had to admit to himself he indeed found the voice unsettling to his nerves despite his own steady self-assurance.

"Have you been studying my personality then?" he queried, using his innate skill at this kind of tête-à-tête to edge cautiously toward the truth, even as the aforementioned risk-taker in him obligingly manipulated the blue stone in the ring on his left little finger once more, allowing the secret passage to slide open.

No one was in that passageway. No force rushed forward to attack him. Only the blackness of the hidden unlit maze greeted Solo's probing eyes.

"Take the gun from the holster under your jacket and place it on the floor in the passageway please, Mr. Solo," the voice continued its polite demands, the words lightly caressed by the Scandinavian accent.

Norwegian, Napoleon decided, the accent was Norwegian, yet very subtle, rubbed soft by years of speaking English as a main language.

Dropping his overcoat over the back of a nearby chair, Solo did as he was bid since it seemed to him no great hardship to lose possession of the gun at this precise moment. Though Napoleon prided himself on having retained his deadly accuracy as a sharpshooter, he could hardly hit an opponent he couldn't see, an opponent who might not be anything more than a presence electronically projected here and thus ensconced safely beyond the potential aim of his Special. In any case, he had other varieties of weapons readily available upon his person and within this room, a fact he was positively sure was not unknown to his unforeseen and unseen guest.

Waves of light… Flickered wasn't the right word. It was more as if those waves undulated for the briefest of moments, so brief a span of time that it was easy to account such merely a trick played by one's own eyes. Solo watched in silence, forcing all thoughts to remain unexpressed on his face, as the semi-automatic he had just placed on the floor of the passage rose up seemingly of its own volition, part of the handle sinking out of sight with the movement. And then his Special hung, muzzle pointing toward the floor, about three or so feet in the air within the expanse of the dark passage. The weapon moved off smoothly from the blackness and out to his right, hanging no more than a couple feet shy of his own grasp, should he fully extend his arm.

"Close the panel," the voice stated evenly, for the first time not adding the perfunctory please to the order.

Napoleon pressed the gem in his pinky ring to the left once more and the panel slid silently shut. The firearm rose up to aim decidedly in his direction, and Solo heard rather than saw, since the item in question flicked out of sight exactly as the sound registered in his awareness, the safety clicked off.

"Please activate the manual lock on the main corridor door," the voice made another request.

"There are those with access to a safety override code, you do realize," Solo unperturbedly advised even as he triggered the locking mechanism with a touch on the open control panel imbedded flat in his desk.

"Now you will sit down please, Mr. Solo."

The tone wasn't deadpan; it wasn't flat; it wasn't simply unvaried in level or pitch, neither was it quintessentially emotionless, or any of those all-too-simple descriptions. It was a tone of utter self-control, yet without the unnatural limitations such normally implied. It almost made Napoleon want to physically shudder, but he instantly mastered that impulse courtesy of years of training. Showing weakness of any kind would likely be a mistake he wouldn't be given the chance to regret.

"You will sit down please," the voice repeated patiently.

"You have me at a disadvantage," challenged Napoleon in a casually nonchalant tone, his mind convoluting on how best at this particular junction to direct this conversation to his benefit. As he took a seat in his usual chair behind the enormous desk, Solo decided on the tack of stating the obvious. "It seems you can see me, but it's crystal-clear I can't see you."

There was a heartbeat of silence, and then came the sound of a zipper being released followed hard upon by that of someone pulling off something likely over the head, perhaps a mask or tightly fitted hood. Blinking in disbelief, Solo stared at what appeared to all intents and purposes to be a disembodied head floating less than six feet in the air now approximately five feet or so to his right.

"And now you see as much of me as is necessary… for the moment," spoke the mouth in that head.

The face revealed in this strange game of cat-and-mouse was that of woman likely in her forties. She had light blond hair that fluctuated between golden and silvery hues in the harsh glare of the office lights, that hair cut in a short, layered shag that framed her face and caught Napoleon's senses off-guard with its uncanny resemblance, by both color and style, to Illya's hair in his youth. The face itself was not beautiful, far from his memories of gorgeous female adversaries like Angelique. Still, it was a striking face: high cheekbones, unremarkable lips made more memorable by their skillful smudging with an overly pastel hue of frosted lipstick, exceedingly pale-lashed, large eyes that, Solo realized somewhat uncomfortably, were the exact same shade of hazel-brown as his own.

Napoleon Solo had to admit he had seen a lot of unexpected things in his lifetime, but he had no idea at all what to make of this current strangeness. He stared at the head, assessing what he saw. A rather ostentatious piece of jewelry the woman wore on one ear caught his full attention.

"Your earring…" he initiated.

"My earcuff, yes," corrected the woman as the glittering display of diamonds decorating almost all of her left earlobe and ear ridge momentarily winked out of Solo's sight and then rematerialized within his scan of vision.

Had she reached up to touch the object in question? Is that what caused the strange appear/disappear/reappear phenomenon?

"You find it… informative?" she quizzed evocatively, the voice never varying in its silky tone or measured pace.

"Very," admitted Solo. "It's in the form of a bird, isn't it? A thrush perhaps?" he pressed.

"Very discerning," the woman allowed.

A ripple of light undulated as the position of the "floating" U.N.C.L.E. Special shifted slightly forward, pointedly closer to Solo's face. By the position of the weapon relative to the woman's own face, Napoleon surmised that gun was actually being held in her right hand. How in the hell was she managing to keep her body invisible like that?

The semi-automatic was leveled directly and unwaveringly at the spot of his forehead just between his eyes. This was not an unusual occurrence in Solo's life certainly, but he was at a definite disadvantage here, since he would not be able to track the woman's movements except by extrapolation. He decided to extend the banter between them as he pondered possible ways to extricate himself from this untenable situation. He had several tricks at his disposal, but in all honesty he wasn't sure any of them would be even remotely effective, and more importantly even that he really was in any immediate danger.

"You intend to kill me?" he pressed her.

"I intend to make an end," the woman responded cryptically.

"By ending my life?" he pushed for complete clarification.

The woman's lips curved into a rather self-satisfied little smile.

"Endings sometimes require more than simply a death, Mr. Solo," she furthered unsatisfactorily.

"So if you don't intend on firing that pistol right at this moment," Napoleon hedged his bets on his natural instincts about people, "what do you intend to do? What do you intend I do?"

"Wait," was the only answer she provided.

"Wait for what?" ventured Napoleon.

"For the inevitable," the woman decreed. "Sit back and relax, Mr. Solo. Your friends should notice you missing soon, yes? Then Mr. Kuryakin will try to contact you. You will not answer your phone or respond to any other form of communication. Finally he will come here to check on what has happened to you."

"So I'm bait?" surmised Napoleon with a defiant smirk.

"In a manner of speaking," acknowledged the woman, "but not exactly as you think. I assure you in all honesty that I have no ill designs on Mr. Kuryakin."

"Yet on U.N.C.L.E. in general surely," he attempted to guess her motivation by making the question not a question but rather a frank statement.

"Perhaps," his antagonist deigned to allow some insight, "but then again perhaps not," though that insight proved exasperatingly little. "One way or another, however, I will bring all proceedings to the anticipated end."

The woman's eyes held his. It was really disconcerting seeing your own eyes bore into you like that, Napoleon decided. Even more so when those dark eyes were incongruously surrounded by thick but absolutely white eyelashes (for they were indeed snowy white, he catalogued with full accuracy now) and situated beneath finely arched but equally as white eyebrows.

"So we wait," pronounced Napoleon coolly, some almost preternatural sense telling him this wait would be well worth his patience and possibly self-endangering lack of aggressive reaction.

A new Thrush plot to ascertain and then foil. Some new battle against Evil. Well, so much for those vague, romantically tinged desires about all such things fading beyond even old memory. Ever the risk-taker, Solo acceded quickly to himself that living on the razor's edge was in truth the only way of living he even remotely understood.

The woman nodded slowly. "We wait," she reaffirmed.

* * *

Napoleon was late, exasperatingly late. And Illya? He was understandably furious… and just as understandably concerned, since he knew without even a shadow of doubt his partner never made any promise, whether elaborate or simple, that he did not fully intend to keep.

Kuryakin's wife was putting on her best cool, British aristocratic ploy of not letting on how upset she was at the inconsideration of her husband's best friend, joking to all the waiting guests about "powerful men and their equally as powerful penchant for saving the world leading them into forgetting all manners." Inwardly, however, Illya knew Trice was patently hurt. She always tried so hard to make it apparent she did not begrudge Illya his unusually close camaraderie with Napoleon. She always tried so hard to make it apparent to Napoleon she accounted him as much a part of her life as her husband's. That she accepted Solo occupied a place in her husband's heart she never could. She wanted it well understood she was satisfied with her own place in Illya's life and love. That she wasn't jealous or threatened or resentful or wounded by the more-than-brothers/less-than-lovers relationship that existed between the two men. And then something like this would happen, and Trice would begin to feel somehow that Napoleon did not believe her. That he somehow mistrusted, or worse was offended by, her sincere overtures to him as a friend.

Illya sighed. He would have to deal later with trying to right everything in Trice's mind and heart. Right now there was a non-reachable Napoleon. No response to phone calls, computer messages, or special emergency "contact required now" signals sent via a private U.N.C.L.E. communications channel not only to Solo's cell phone, but also to dedicated receivers in Napoleon's office, apartment and car as well. Not even a response to the insistent trill of the redesigned pen communicators currently being tested before full deployment for general usage.

"I have to check on him, Trice," Illya apologized softly to his wife.

"I know you do," Trice acquiesced just as softly.

Patrice Elsweith Kuryakin held a noble title in her native England. Here in the U.S., however, she much preferred no one reference her as "Lady Patrice". Here she was simply "Trice". Curvaceous figure contrasting sharply with her somewhat elfin features accented by hazel eyes more green than brown, she had something of the look of a paperback-romance-inspired fairy kin, a look further emphasized by her shoulder-length mane of wavy auburn hair. She had met Illya just as her thirties were commencing into their second half. He had been just months shy of turning fifty back then, though he had looked somewhat younger. She remembered that first meeting well.

It had been in London at an exhibit they both were attending on Russian art of the period of Czar Nicholas II. Trice had always adored Faberge eggs. The exquisiteness of the tiny worlds they captured within their precious shells had been a source for her imaginative wanderings as a child and adolescent. As an adult she had learned to appreciate the precise skill needed to create such diminutive wonders.

She had been speaking to a friend, well actually her boyfriend at that time, about a particular egg on display. Explaining every facet of the history she knew about the piece, she had been bluntly interrupted by a man nearby who noted she had one tiny detail wrong in her discourse. That conversational interloper had then proceeded uninvited to expound on the particular detail, citing all the historical sources where such could be checked as to accuracy.

Trice had been somewhat insulted, but also somewhat intrigued. And when the good-looking, blue-eyed man had unknowingly soothed her ruffled ego by complimenting her on how much she knew regarding Russian art of that particular Czarist period, the intrigue had won out. They had chatted some more about the Faberge pieces and about that era of Russian history, with Trice's erstwhile escort trying none too successfully not to look annoyed. The exchange had advanced in a natural progression to a somewhat heated, though not unfriendly, debate on the pros and cons of the Bolshevik Revolution that had unseated the last Czar from power. Yet, even though it was apparent this Illya Kuryakin, as he had ultimately introduced himself, had enjoyed the dialogue between them as much as she, that chat abruptly ended as her date sought to regain her attentions. And the previous conversational interloper made no attempt to ask for her phone number or indeed remarked anything even remotely suggesting he'd like to see her again as much as she found she wanted to see him again.

So Trice had used a very un-British, un-aristocratic ploy and had bluntly called after his retreating figure, "I would like very much to finish this discussion, Mr. Kuryakin. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon over tea?"

Illya had turned back to her, stopped dead in his tracks, but he had answered with a slight smile and in a friendly tone, "I would also like very much to finish this discussion. Tomorrow over tea will work well."

She had walked over to him, ignoring her date shamelessly, to finalize the place and time for their next meeting. And that, as they say, was that. That moment had bought them to a startlingly intense four-month courtship, marriage, a child, and now this night at the seventy-fifth birthday party for Illya's closest and dearest friend where that closest and dearest friend had been a no-show.

Picking up his internet-equipped phone, Illya made the necessary secure connection into U.N.C.L.E.'s network and used an Eyes-Only application to check what was known as the bio-drone for Napoleon's signal. A new technology still in testing stages, the bio-drone only worked within U.N.C.L.E. facilities or within a specified range of the new-style pen communicators as it required fixed magnetic currents to pick up the signature bio-magnetic field generated by a living being. Each frequency was as unique as DNA, and through that frequency any U.N.C.L.E. operative could ostensibly be located anywhere in the world. Of course it was of no help at all if the person being sought was beyond the boundaries of U.N.C.L.E.'s in-house monitoring system, or if that individual was many-hours dead (the freshly dead continued to project a bio-magnetic field that slowly deteriorated over the course of several hours).

Yet, to Illya's surprise and relief (not to mention irritation), Napoleon's signal, strong and true, still showed the man ensconced in his office in NY HQ. Though relieved he wouldn't need to alert Section V to begin an all-out search for the U.N.C.L.E. chief, the Russian was more than annoyed Solo had seemingly allowed the routine obligations of his job (since Illya knew without a doubt the other man would have contacted him immediately had any U.N.C.L.E.-related emergency arisen) to cause him to ignore the perhaps equally as routine yet surely more personal obligations of friendship. That was such an unfair thing for his friend to have done to Trice, no matter how unintentionally Napoleon might have done it. That private thought intercepted Illya's immediate secondary check of the bio-drone to sense any presence other than that of Napoleon within the chief's office; particularly any presence unidentified by previous synchronization with U.N.C.L.E. recorded profiles.

"He is still at headquarters," Illya remarked in a tight monotone to his wife. "I will go get him."

"If he doesn't want to be here, Illya," Trice forwarded in a very tight monotone of her own, "there's no need to force him to show up. I can make the proper excuses to everyone about his non-appearance."

"Oh, he is going to show up," pronounced Kuryakin as evenly as he could considering his teeth had clenched not just in anger but also in frustration at this further evidence of his always-so-charming friend's oft-time less-than-charming ignorance when it came to Trice's feelings.

_"He is going to show up or he will answer to me," Illya unspokenly furthered his own reply._

But he certainly had no intention of Trice hearing him say that aloud. So instead he turned on his heel and headed toward the door and the assumed confrontation with the man he still considered his partner.

It wasn't until Kuryakin was seated behind the wheel of his car that he collected his anger sufficiently to remember to check the bio-drone again for any unidentified presence within the immediate sphere of Solo's own signal. Nothing registered, so he once more made a mental conclusion regarding the non-necessity of alerting U.N.C.L.E.'s Communications and Security Section, clenched his teeth in agitation again, put the key in the auto ignition, gunned the gas pedal, and took off at a pace fast enough to keep his fury somewhat under physical control, that pace of course being much too reckless a speed.

* * *

Perhaps a quarter hour later, Illya entered unceremoniously into Napoleon's office through the pneumatic door that yielded to his emergency override code. Though Kuryakin had been somewhat surprised to find the door initially locked against normal entrance via appropriate access badge proximity, he knew from experience that Solo sometimes "burrowed" in his office, sealing himself away from distractions as he considered particularly thorny decisions.

"Napoleon," he spoke in a voice unmistakably raised in anger, "Trice is hurting like hell and I am absolutely fuming…"

Kuryakin's tirade stopped short as he took in the strange scene before him. Though he instinctively drew his Special out from its holster, he couldn't help but blink. Then he squinted hard and finally blinked a second time as if to clear his vision.

"Good," remarked Napoleon unflappably, "now at least I can be positive I'm not hallucinating."

"Not unless you are generously sharing your hallucinations," quipped back Illya with dry humor.

"Well, I do have a generous nature," granted Napoleon with remarkable ease considering the semi-automatic pointed at his forehead. "Still, I think a case of the crazies might be too intimate a possession to share even with you, Illya."

Having now received confirmation as to the identity of the second man, the woman-who-was-no-more-than-a-head laughed delightedly.

"You won't need your weapon, Mr. Kuryakin," she subsequently asserted to the blue-eyed man.

The gun floating somewhere below the woman's head changed positions easily, the muzzle fading into partial oblivion as it (and the head) moved toward Solo. Once at an easy distance to do so, the butt of the weapon was offered into Napoleon's grip.

"You may have this back now," the woman presented this reversal of control without hesitation. "I have a generous nature too, you see, and I did tell you all you needed to do was wait. Now I will surrender most willingly." She glanced over at Kuryakin still aiming his Special at her head. "And hopefully uneventfully," she added.

Solo accepted the return of his Special, feeling particularly as he did so for the reality of the hand of his female adversary. And there it was: the press of fingers that were likely gloved, but undeniably warm and very much flesh. Invisible or not, she was not a projection.

"Thank you," he acknowledged her supposed generosity as he clicked back into rest position the safety on his firearm before replacing it, somewhat too casually in Illya's opinion, in the holster under his suit coat. "Now suppose you extend your generosity to telling us what all this is about."

Illya was now eyeing what there was to see of the woman with critical expertise, had been doing so for some moments in fact.

"A trick of light, is it not?" he questioned her. "Refraction, reflection, absorption -- light manipulated to make the concrete appear insubstantial."

The woman turned her gaze toward the blue-eyed man.

"You are as scientifically astute as your reputation amongst Thrush maintains, Mr. Kuryakin," she complimented him unperturbedly as Napoleon observed that the tone of ultra-control in her voice had relaxed. "Yes, it is a trick of light," she admitted. "A rather complicated trick requiring a rather extraordinary apparatus, but still, no more than a trick of light. You'll have a chance to examine the marvelous contrivance fully of course, later when it's removed in one of your security holding cells. But for the present I hope you will permit me the modesty of continuing to wear it."

"A garment then?" Illya pressed further.

She nodded slowly.

"Something like a wet suit, only it's not meant to repel water, but rather luminosity of any and all kinds."

"And it requires direct contact with skin temperature to remain active," surmised Solo, some inner intuition causing him to state this assumption as fact.

Again the woman nodded.

"Skin temperature and the chemicals found in human perspiration. Which isn't a very elegant setup, I do admit, but then science so often does lack grace," the woman expounded with a bit of a smirk.

"Still doesn't answer the main question," Napoleon reminded.

"The main question?" she bantered easily.

"Yes," seconded Illya, "that being why you are here."

"Well, I would say I wanted to be taken to your leader," she quipped, "but I managed quite capably to take myself to him."

She gave Napoleon an expansive smile. Napoleon smiled back in evident amusement, but Illya was not amused in the least.

"So what do you now want 'our leader' to do with you?" Illya prompted brusquely.

"Why, take me to a holding cell and let me get some sleep," she brazened out. "I'm utterly exhausted from all this waiting to surrender."

"There will be questions to be answered before you sleep," Kuryakin pledged her with some vexation.

She laughed.

"Oh no," she disavowed his certainty. "No questions and no answers until tomorrow. But you will have the suit to analyze in the meanwhile, Mr. Kuryakin. That should provide you with sufficient," her slight Norwegian accent lent the last word an almost caressing cadence, "food for thought."

Solo studied her for a long moment, leaning his chin on the hand of his arm that now rested on its elbow upon the surface of his desk. Illya saw the telltale signs of manipulation and scheming displayed, only to one who so well knew him, upon the familiar face of his friend, and he almost audibly sighed in sheer frustration. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. He found this inflexible truth rising unbidden in his mind.

Napoleon finally nodded, physically acceding to the woman's stated desires as he verbally declared, "I'll escort you to a cell myself."

"Napoleon," began Illya in a cautionary manner. Kuryakin's gun was still drawn and unwaveringly pointed in the direction of the woman's head.

"Oh, I have no weapon of any kind on my person, Mr. Kuryakin," the woman anticipated the other man's objections to his friend's decision. "One cannot put them under the suit, or wear them on the suit. One can hold a weapon of course, but then it is easily seen. That was why I needed to… borrow," she teased, "Mr. Solo's weapon to keep him waiting here so patiently at bay."

Napoleon cleared his throat rather loudly.

Illya looked askance at his friend, marveling how Napoleon seemed so willing to take this peculiar "surrender" at face value. Yet his friend's lack of suspicion on this score did not relax Kuryakin's own wariness one iota, and certainly he did not alter the aim of his Special.

"You will have to explain to me exactly how she did that, Napoleon, borrowed your gun I mean," Illya guaranteed Solo in his best acerbic manner that there was no hope of finessing his way out of eventually revealing that particular faux pas.

Flushing hotly, Solo rose and aimed to take the woman by the arm, or rather where he anticipated her arm might be. Luckily he estimated correctly and grasped her rather firmly under the right elbow as he put off Kuryakin's query with a mumbled, "Later, Illya."

Kuryakin, however, halted the Number 1 of Section I's path toward the door by placing the hand not leveling his semi-automatic at the woman's face flat against his friend's chest. The Russian shook his head at the American. "Oh no," he made his point quite bluntly. Then Illya clicked on the message center intercom and matter-of-factly relayed, "Standard security team to Mr. Solo's office for a hostile transport and incarceration. No immediate threat. Repeat: no immediate threat."

Napoleon huffed at Kuryakin's high-handed tactic. "I'm perfectly capable of taking an unarmed Thrushie to a holding cell without calling for backup, Illya," he petulantly protested his friend's unnecessary measure of protection.

Illya fixed his blue-eyed gaze directly onto the hazel-brown one of Napoleon. "Protocol," he expounded incisively. "Even Section Heads need to follow it, remember?"

Without moving his eyes from those of Napoleon, Illya declared, not at all apologetically of course, to the Thrush agent in their midst, "You'll pardon if I am of the opinion, madam, that you have already monopolized enough of the personal attention of 'our leader'," he again resorted to her playful terminology to himself playfully concede Solo's position, a faint smile twisting just at the corners of his mouth as he spoke the phrase.

The Thrush agent found the whole one-upmanship game going on between the two men definitely amusing and completely fascinating. Thrush did keep most accurate dossiers, and she gave mental tribute to that establishment's meticulous record-keepers.

"Certainly, Mr. Kuryakin," she acquiesced to his conclusion with a radiant smile. "Protocol has its proper place in every organization."

Napoleon released a barely audible grunt of dissatisfaction just as the four-man security detail entered through the now-barred-only-by-badge-access pneumatic door. Unexpectedly for a non-threatening routine security assignment, Jack Valdar, Number 1 in Section II, led the team.

"This woman is Thrush, Mr. Valdar," Illya filled in the younger man as he holstered his own gun now that the woman's head was being targeted by four Specials, one in the hand of each member of the security team. "She has surrendered willingly. Apparently she is outfitted with some new Thrush invention to manipulate light, making her appear largely invisible. Have one of the female agents see to its removal and have it placed in appropriate quarantine for customary transmission, explosive and biohazard checks. Then have it brought to my lab."

"Of course, Mr. Kuryakin," Valdar responded crisply, his tone perfectly business-like. Napoleon unconsciously grimaced at the completely professional voice.

"She is **not** to be questioned until tomorrow," Solo gave his own orders somewhat harshly.

Illya glanced askance at his one-time partner, wondering why in the world he was acceding to this woman's wishes regarding interrogation. Yet verbally he only added, "I will question her myself at that juncture, Mr. Valdar."

Jack Valdar nodded just as crisply as he had formerly spoken. Then he forwarded his left hand, the one not currently brandishing his semi-automatic, displaying a blue-tinted access badge he held in its palm. This temporary badge permitted a prisoner to walk the corridors of U.N.C.L.E. without alarms sounding at every step as long as the wearer remained in predetermined proximity to two full-access security badges. However, it opened none of the doors or elevators. Thus a captive was entirely dependent on his/her guard detail to perform those necessary actions for true movement through headquarters.

"She will require a temporary badge to be escorted to the holding cell area without the klaxons going off," Valdar stated unnecessarily.

"I am well aware of security requirements!" barked out Solo with more churlishness than was surely called for in the situation. Was every employee of U.N.C.L.E. out to call into question his adherence to procedure today?

"Of course, sir," Jack snapped out of his mental funk concerning how the hell he was supposed to pin a badge on the person of a woman he couldn't see. Pushing aside that particular awkwardness without so much as a raised eyebrow, the Number 1 of Section II reached out and affixed the blue-tinted titanium-alloy triangle to what he hoped was the woman's collar (it was in actuality the forward edge of the released hood), succeeding without a single finger fumble and without any facial expression of relief at his chance accuracy.

The woman's eyes held his appraisingly for a moment, though Valdar had no clue as to why and frankly didn't care. He simply took out a blackout hood from one of his pockets and pushed it down easily over her plainly detectable head. Now completely indifferent to the woman's less-than-usual visibility, Jack accurately gauged the position of her left arm, that is, the one Solo was not already (if unclearly) clasping, and grabbed hold. The U.N.C.L.E. chief released his own grasp as the CEA snagged the woman's other arm and positioned himself what he assumed was behind her. Sliding his fingers down her arms to find the wrists by touch alone, Valdar finally cuffed those seized wrists behind her back and led the Thrush out of the room with the rest of his team surrounding them as was documented practice: one in front of captor and captive, one to the woman's free side, one following in the rear of the pair.

"You really should be more circumspect, Napoleon," chastised Illya once the door had closed behind the prisoner and her escort.

"She posed no threat to me," insisted Napoleon. "I could sense that."

Illya meaningfully rolled his eyes.

"I know your instincts about people are generally spot-on, my friend," he permitted himself to voice the loose compliment, "but it does not do to be so cavalier with your own life. You are not simply an Enforcement Agent now, and you are certainly **not** expendable."

Expulsing another loud breath, Solo protested, "I still am, Illya! That's simply how it is with all of us in U.N.C.L.E."

Yet his dissent sounded lame even to his own ears. He knew all too well what Illya said was perfectly reasonable if gallingly less than exciting.

"Ever wish you were young again, Illya?" Napoleon quizzed his friend in a bemused tone as he retreated to his usual chair while Illya took a seat in one of the others. "No time to ponder what-ifs and should-bes out there in the field as you fight against the challenges to good or right or whatever with only your own wits and your own reflexes and your own…"

"And your own body?" interrupted Kuryakin straightforwardly. "No, Napoleon, I really do not wish that. I do miss the…" he hesitated for a moment, searching for just the right words. "The unchallenged connection that time gave me to the appeal of living. Yet I'm rather content now to limit my participation in the heat and excitement of having death hovering ever near and instead grow old with some semblance of grace."

Solo smiled indulgently at the partner with whom he had in the past shared so much of that "heat and excitement of having death hovering ever near".

"Death still hovers ever near, Illya," he reminded his friend with the merest hint of resignation. "Death never relinquishes that position near the living… until it ultimately makes it full and final claim. The only difference is whether it bursts in like the most amateurly boorish of party-crashers, or steals in like the professionally hushed thief in the night."

"Are you turning philosophical in your old age, Napoleon?" Illya inquired with an indulgent smile of his own.

"Perhaps I'm just turning dubious in my old age, Illya," clarified Solo, "dubious that everything I've ever done for what I believe in, everything I still do for those ideals or that cause or whatever you want to call it, has ever been enough to make any kind of real difference at all."

Kuryakin kept his peace at this unanticipated revelation from his friend. Not for the first time in the last quarter century Illya adamantly wished Napoleon had managed to overcome his personal fear that commitment to something or someone beyond U.N.C.L.E. might hinder his fervent commitment to U.N.C.L.E. itself. A commitment he knew Solo saw as another promise he fully intended to keep, the most important promise of his entire life, the promise that was indeed his life itself. Illya so wished his friend had managed in the latter half of his existence to find, as he himself had, some inner and non-demanding quiet with a wife and maybe children to ease his dogged determination with regard to his ironclad idealism. But Napoleon was Napoleon: the man who, with his inherent charm and natural affability, touched many but held on to none. Only Illya had ever claimed more of his heart and soul than a simple mental and emotional brush of the fingertips. Well, Illya and Clara Valdar.

A change of subject was in order, Illya decided, something to pull Solo away from the precarious brink of outright melancholia. And the Russian knew just the subject that would serve.

"You really should not let your dislike of Jack Valdar color your opinion of him as an operative, Napoleon," challenged Kuryakin, hitting just the raw nerve he knew would bring his friend's thoughts back from the edge of philosophical meanderings to current realities.

"I don't dislike him," protested Solo, his voice almost unnaturally quiet.

"You just don't much like him," Illya batted back his response.

Napoleon narrowed his eyes, the brown-hazel depths suddenly smoldering like heaps of calcining umber.

"I wasn't aware I was required as Number 1 in Section I to like every operative in U.N.C.L.E.," Solo quietly hissed through tight lips. "I honestly appreciate the man's talents as a skilled Enforcement Agent. I believe that is where my responsibility as his superior begins and ends."

"Appreciate his talents so honestly," pushed Illya, "that you bypassed him for the position of Chief Enforcement Agent two years ago."

"He has the job now," Solo spoke in the soft, slow, controlled tone that always gave evidence of the deepest anger in him.

"Only because Larson had the unfortunate ill-luck to die in a terrorist bombing three months back," Kuryakin refused to let up on this subject. "But you knew positively at the time you promoted Larson that appointment should have gone to Valdar."

"I had honest reservations about his style," challenged Napoleon.

"Oh, I am well aware the man won't win any personality prizes," Illya pressed forward. "Indeed, I am distinctly aware of that fact since many years ago the dislike of colleagues in Section II was far from foreign to me personally."

That frank outburst silenced Napoleon. He took a deep breath to simmer down his tightly leashed fury regarding Illya's broach of the sore subject of Jack Valdar.

"You were different," Solo finally hedged unsatisfactorily, his tone now normalized.

Illya shook his head, as always astounded by his friend's unshakeable and sometimes blind allegiance to him, an allegiance that was just as unshakeable and often just as blind in himself toward Solo.

"Napoleon, you are right in saying that Valdar is different than I was," Illya conceded softly to his friend. "The circumstances that precipitated each of our associations with U.N.C.L.E. are very different, but the coping techniques are much the same. Valdar has an inordinate need to prove himself. Anyone can see that. And that makes him… well, less than congenial with people. What drives him, I don't know. Certainly it is not the frank desire for order in life, for the detachment from what can't be controlled, that drove me. Yet whatever drives him, it has made him unequivocally the best Enforcement Agent currently in U.N.C.L.E., a critical facet of his steely determination to succeed it seems only you refuse to recognize."

Solo rested his head somewhat wearily against the high leather back of his chair.

"I'm not lying when I said I had… have honest reservations about his style, Illya," Napoleon thought the time ripe to divulge the fullness of his own reluctance to promote Valdar within the framework of the organization. "The man has… no sense of diplomacy, as well as little feel for initiating creative extrapolations when original plans fail."

Illya understood Solo's reservations. What he said was certainly true. Valdar was professional and by-the-book in his approach. But the Number 1 in Section II really needed to be more than that, really needed to have… somewhat the qualities of a chameleon. Still, such a combination of skills and personality was admittedly rare, and few CEAs in the history of U.N.C.L.E. had truthfully ever had it. Thing is though right now Illya was chatting with one past CEA who unquestionably had possessed such a combination of qualities, and so it was certainly possible Napoleon expected more of his new Number 1 in Section II than he realistically had a right to expect of any agent.

"In other words," Illya could not resist teasing, "Jack Valdar is no Napoleon Solo."

Napoleon chuckled easily and openly, not minding his friend's good-humored jab at his ego. That ego had never been obnoxiously strident or overly dramatic. It had just been always there, part of his natural self-confidence, of his inner ease with his own sense of who he was.

"There is only one Napoleon Solo," Solo boasted with a good-natured wink.

"A gentle forbearance toward the human race for which I constantly thank any power that might be," Illya parried back before reciprocating with a quick wink of his own.

Then Kuryakin sobered his expression as he gave serious consideration to a particular possibility. "Perhaps all Valdar needs is the right partner," he ventured to suggest to Napoleon.

Napoleon glanced at Illya for a moment, his expressive dark eyes becoming hooded as he gave the matter full mental evaluation. He tapped the fingers of one hand thoughtfully against his lips. "Perhaps," he at last permitted himself to potentially agree.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, an obviously flustered Illya roused about in the pockets of his dinner jacket searching for his cell phone. A flood of Russian escaped his lips in a quick-paced torrent.

"Whoa, whoa, tovarisch," Napoleon jovially implied his partner slow down the avalanche of foreign words. "Where's the fire?"

"I forgot to call Trice and tell her what was going on!" Illya exclaimed anxiously.

"Just tell her an intangibly fetching Thrushie decided to drop by headquarters for an unscheduled and somewhat theatrical capitulation," Napoleon was the one now providing the clever suggestion, even if he did do it with a bit of a smirk.

"Yes," Illya found himself thinking for the second time in the past hour as he frantically awaited the response to the cell phone's electronic signal that would provide him the needed vocal connection with his wife, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

* * *

**Act II: 25 Rounds at Midnight…**

"25 rounds. Conditions: High Noon, Full Sun," commanded Natasha Kuryakin of the computer that controlled the firing range site.

Virtually instantly the domed room was flooded with intense illumination and electronic target "dots" of both light and dark shading started to appear in rapid succession at random positions throughout the enclosure. Natasha moved lithely in the direction required by each target dot, sometimes crouching low, sometimes doing a full body roll toward the next target, sometimes moving backwards, sometimes leaping forward or running ahead at breakneck speed. Each time she squeezed off a shot from her Special that hit the target dead-on. Sometimes she shot from normal chest-high position, sometimes from the hip, sometimes over her head, sometimes from flat on her stomach or back, and once even partially behind her back. And in seamless timing with this blur of object-oriented motion, she replaced whenever required the clip in her semi-automatic from spares held on a utility belt she wore about her hips.

"25 rounds complete," the computer interjected in an electronic voice. "Accuracy: 25 targets, 25 hits."

"25 rounds. Conditions: Sunrise, No Haze," Natasha quickly moved to another setup. And just as quickly the conditions were met by the computer's program and Natasha was repeating her pursuit of the flashing targets.

From the viewing gallery bathed in only infrared light and protected behind a shield of bulletproof glass Napoleon Solo watched in engrossed admiration. "Best damn marksman I've ever seen," he noted mentally with a swell of pride because, after all, this was Illya's daughter and his own goddaughter.

"25 rounds complete," the computer summarized again. "Accuracy: 25 targets, 25 hits."

"25 rounds. Conditions: Twilight, Heavy Haze," Natasha chose her next scenario.

Appreciatively, Solo took in Natasha's easy economy of movement, the way little if anything seemed to catch her off-guard or off-balance when a target flashed on, the confidence with which she switched gun-hands when shooting off-hand would provide better access to the target. Natasha was what was recognized in the field as a natural sharpshooter. Of course she had been meticulously trained as well, but all the training in the world couldn't guarantee peripheral vision swift enough to correctly assess those faint changes of light play within an environment that gave precise advance warning of a target's position.

"25 rounds complete," came the computer's notation again. "Accuracy: 25 targets, 22 hits."

Napoleon smiled to himself. Though he couldn't hear her muttered words beyond the glass, more than likely Natasha was cursing in Russian regarding having missed three targets in this scenario. Though all-American to her toes in attitude and upbringing, Natasha of the tri-citizenship (American/Russian/British) had been raised in a multi-lingual household. Thus her Russian was faultless and came quite naturally to her lips.

"25 rounds. Conditions: Midnight, No Moon," barked out the young woman with a bit of an edge in her voice now.

The room conditions were acclimated to the voice command and Natasha was off once more, honed reflexes on full display.

"25 rounds complete," the computer announced. "Accuracy: 25 targets, 24 hits."

Clicking the intercom to active from his side of the glass, Napoleon complimented the rookie agent, "Amazing shooting for 25 rounds at midnight without a moon to visually aid detection."

Natasha turned to face Solo where he stood behind the glass. "I missed a target," she voiced somewhat petulantly her own displeasure at her results. "And missed three in hazy twilight."

"I always find hazy twilight conditions the most frustrating myself," responded Napoleon with a surreptitious wink. "Don't pout about it, Natasha," he ribbed his goddaughter good-naturedly. "Instead come on out in the gallery here, so I can talk to you without bouncing my voice electronically all over this blasted dome. Makes me feel like the Wizard of Oz."

Natasha laughed. "Your wish is my command, oh great and powerful one," she acknowledged with a good-humored mock bow.

Grabbing a fresh towel from a stocked shelf, Natasha tossed the terrycloth item around her neck, casually flipping her waist-length braid of silver blond hair over the soft material. She then manually opened the pneumatic door leading out to the gallery by activating a small touch control, the lighting in the gallery shifting to full incandescent illumination with that same action. In the firing range, doors that opened automatically were not a wise idea, thus dictating the regular usage of a manual override control. Wiping her face with one end of the towel as she walked through the gallery to the spot where Napoleon stood waiting, Natasha rotated her shoulders briefly, easing from them any tension resulting from her grueling early-morning exercise in marksmanship.

"Morning, Dyadya," she greeted Solo as she usually did, addressing him with the Russian word for uncle. It held a duality of meaning regarding her personal closeness to him as an ersatz relative and her new professional relationship with him as the head of the U-N-C-L-E that she enjoyed exploiting in her completely irrepressible way. For his part, Napoleon was not yet sure he should continue to let her address him by that term within his professional capacity as her superior. Granted, he was much more relaxed in his manner with underlings than had been Alexander Waverly, addressing his field agents by their first names on a regular basis. Yet still by those underlings he was himself generally addressed as "sir", just as Waverly had been, so the whole Dyadya thing might just be pushing informality a bit too far.

Natasha leaned in to place a casual kiss on Napoleon's cheek. She had known him since she was an infant, he was part of her family without there being any actual blood ties involved, and she was not going to pretend he suddenly had turned into someone other than the man she knew as her well-loved Dyadya. New status as her top-level superior in her own new status as Enforcement Agent in the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement or not, this man was as much a part of her prior childhood as of her current adulthood.

"You do realize you have a ton of making up to do to Mom, don't you?" Natasha broached this touchy subject with a twinkle in her eye.

Napoleon gave a melodramatic groan.

"I know. For missing the big party last night," he conceded defeat with regard to future apologies he would need to make to Trice.

"Not only for missing the big party yourself," corrected Natasha, amusedly enjoying Solo's current uncomfortable spot in her mother's graces, "but for pulling Dad away from it as well. He didn't return home until after 4:00 a.m. I stayed with Mom so she had company, but you know somehow I don't think I salved any pique on her part toward either Dad or you."

"You wouldn't," accused Napoleon in a dark tone and with a hooding of his eyes meant to appear calculatedly censorious. The trick didn't work at all on Natasha.

"Dyadya," she assured Solo as she lightly tapped a finger on the cleft in his chin, "you can effectively charm the world, but you can't effectively scold me. Never could."

She smiled brightly and Napoleon couldn't help but return that smile with equal brightness, even as he remarked in an offhand manner, "That could prove a problem at some point."

Natasha shrugged. "You can just have Dad administer the scolding for you," she forwarded an alternative. Adding with a somewhat rueful smile triggered no doubt by memories of past reprimands delivered her by her father during her lifetime, "He can manage the task quite admirably… if you should ever find it necessary."

Napoleon laughed lightly. "Though, according to your personal estimation, I will never find it necessary," he foresaw her train of thought.

"Never," she agreed. "Though Dad might see fit to irrationally argue that I am far from the perfect daughter, I am unquestionably the perfect goddaughter, and I will be just as unquestionably the perfect spy."

Napoleon laughed again. Natasha's wickedly teasing sense of humor was something he appreciated as much as he did her spot-on marksmanship.

Solo chucked the young woman playfully under the chin as he remarked, "All right, Ms. Perfect, get yourself cleaned up and meet me in my office in forty-five minutes. I have an assignment for you, but first I have to advise Jack."

Natasha gave a little shudder.

"Ah, the ever efficient Mr. Valdar," she continued as she made an obsequious show of straightening the knot in Napoleon's already impeccably knotted and arranged tie. "Mustn't have a hair wrong for that meeting, Dyadya."

"You just get yourself out of that outfit," Napoleon indicated Natasha's practice gear of black sweatpants, a black tank top and soft, black leather tennis shoes, "and into something with some professional flair. Unless you want Jack to sit there twitching his thumbs in exasperated disapproval the entire time you are in the room."

"Aha," Natasha, with raised forefinger, snagged the implication in those words, "now I am actually to be present in the room for this meeting between Section Chiefs."

"The meeting is a briefing regarding your assignment, perfect spy," taunted Solo nonchalantly, "so of course you will be present in the room… once I've prepared Jack so he doesn't ram his head into the nearest wall at my announcement."

"Has my assignment anything to do with the female Thrush agent who surrendered last night?" wheedled Natasha.

Napoleon shook his head.

"No," he negated simply. "We don't even know much about all of that as yet. Your father is going to question the woman in a few hours."

"What's the matter? She didn't like the idea of being up-and-about here at headquarters at 6:30 in the morning like the rest of us?" baited Natasha. She already knew from the grapevine that Napoleon had decreed the woman was not to be questioned overnight. And now, it seemed, the Thrushie was being given the respite of not having to submit to any interrogation at too ungodly early an hour either.

Napoleon squinted into Natasha's ice-blue eyes, replicas of her father's.

"Have you been listening to office gossip?" he questioned bluntly.

"Rumor has it she is quite passably attractive, more than passably intriguing," Natasha mischievously repeated the coffee room tittle-tattle as she defiantly kept her gaze level with Solo's, "and that **you**," she emphasized the word by jabbing a finger against his chest, "stayed in HQ all night."

Napoleon rolled his eyes.

"Even in my saintly old age, I can't live down my lothario reputation," he sniffed, though truthfully not at all with any real upset.

That did it. Natasha just threw back her head and laughed uncontrollably.

"And you love it!" she commented when she had regained enough breath to speak. "Yet Dyadya, let me issue you the warning Dad likely will later this morning." With that Natasha beckoned Solo closer. Obligingly, Napoleon drew his head nearer hers in order to share this supposed confidence. "Do not brush too close to a thrushbird or you may just wind up with stinking droppings on your best suit," she then admonished, mimicking her father's well-known deadpan voice with admirable accuracy.

"Oh that was bad, Natasha," Napoleon criticized her little analogy as he shook his head and let a somewhat pained, though irrefutably amused, smirk twist his lips.

Natasha shrugged once more. "Perhaps I can come up with something better in forty-five minutes," she challenged boldly.

"Honey, please," pursued Solo with completely charming nonchalance, "I don't want to have to make a concerned attempt to pick up a shocked-into-unconsciousness Jack Valdar from my office floor. He's too big a boy for a frail old man like me to lift."

And that set Natasha off in another irrepressible gale of laughter as Napoleon coolly made his way out of the range gallery and into the main corridor, throwing a brusque "Forty-five minutes. Be on time." over his shoulder.

* * *

Jacques, called Jack, Valdar walked the corridor from his office and entered the elevator that would lead him to the lower level labs housed within U.N.C.L.E.'s NY headquarters, all the while trying not to dwell on whatever the Number 1 of Section I intended to spring on him at their scheduled meeting in less than a half-hour. Jack was patently certain his superior would be "lowering the boom" with some startling twist of fate or other. He and Solo were like oil and water, and Jack never bothered to lose sleep debating which of the two of them would have his persona rise to the top of jar.

The current Number 1 of Section II was a study in contrasts. He wasn't liked and he didn't care, but he desperately wanted to be respected by everyone. He was European in upbringing, his family being a prominent and wealthy one within the little country of Terbuf, but he had spent most of his childhood and adolescence in Italy. Stefan Valdar, Jack's father, had been a traitor to his own country that had succeeded in having his wrongdoing glossed over because of certain testimony he had given authorities regarding the misappropriation of aid funds, that testimony only wrested from him as a last resort when the side of his initial choice had imprisoned and mistreated him. Clara Richards Valdar, Jack's American mother, had been before her marriage the one-time fiancée of Napoleon Solo. And maybe it was the cowardice of his father that made Jack so much desire respect. Or maybe it was the fact he knew it had been Napoleon Solo who his own mother had contacted for help when the whole trouble with the fund misappropriations in Terbuf had come to a head. In other words, the fact that Solo was more than casually aware of Stefan's spineless nature, a personality fault Jack had striven all his life to demonstrate was not some inherited weakness in the blood that he himself shared with his begetter, surely played a part in his relentless striving to achieve in U.N.C.L.E. at least as much as, if not more than, Napoleon Solo himself.

As to exactly why Jack had chosen U.N.C.L.E. as the "field of battle" in which to wage psychological warfare against his own deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and shame stemming from his father's failings, he couldn't honestly say. Certainly such was not an obvious career path for him to have taken. Valdar held undergraduate and graduate degrees in archeology, and had served as an integral part of several field dig teams for prestigious museums and universities throughout Europe. Though never naturally gifted intellectually, Jack had always prided and did still pride himself on his determination never to fail at anything he started. And that determination had taken him scholastically wherever he had wanted to go. If he needed to study like a madman to succeed, study like a madman he did.

Similarly had Jack taken it upon himself to train his body just as relentlessly as his mind. He never wanted to appear weak in any phase of self. He never wanted to be relegated to the encompassing umbrella of his father's limitations as a human being. Thus had Jack exercised as ceaselessly as any professional bodybuilder to tone his musculature into masculine perfection, a state of physical prowess the tough archeological digs in which he participated under often unbearable conditions had further enhanced. Attractive in a stark and stern way, Jack's dark auburn hair was the only physical trait he had inherited from his gorgeous mother; while his unexpressive gray eyes and somewhat sharp Romanesque facial features came courtesy of his father. The plain truth was, no matter how you worded it, that there was nothing in any way "soft" about Jack Valdar, not in his face, not in his body, not in his mind, and certainly not in his heart.

Jack had been some months into his twenty-eighth year when he had applied and been accepted to U.N.C.L.E.'s elite Survival School. Why he had submitted that application when he already had a burgeoning career that promised a lifetime of achievement was a question to which he had no firm answer. It was just something deep inside him that had cried out to prove he understood the concept of pursuing a goal beyond that of normal personal success. A goal of seeking something better for the world at large, the type of goal that he knew had been entirely foreign to his father's personality. Jack had wanted then and wanted now, though he never bothered to think it all through to this final truth, to redeem the name of Valdar within the eyes of all humanity.

He had started upon this task at a definite disadvantage. The twenty-two to twenty-five year-olds who were the general graduates of Survival School were looking at field careers in U.N.C.L.E. longer than his was likely destined to be. Recommended retirement age for active field agents had been revised upward to forty-five some decades ago, with even that being not necessarily compulsory as exceptions were sometimes made (as had been in the case of Jack's own previous partner). Still, Jack had finally been promoted to Chief Enforcement Agent just three months ago at the "ripe old age" of thirty-six. Nor was Jack viewed as likely fodder for a Section I position at the end of his Section II tenure, as Solo had been during his own elevation to CEA at a younger age to boot. So the prospect of somehow checkmating Napoleon Solo in this chess match of becoming of ultimate importance to the continuance of U.N.C.L.E. was one game upon which Valdar felt the need to concentrate with all his formidable resources of self-resolution. And in the constant move-by-move decision-making of the match, Jack had long ago abandoned any hint at subtlety.

Such tactics surely gained him no friends, as even those who surmised there might be more to Jack Valdar than what he allowed to rise to the surface found themselves put off by his continual lack of social tact. Jack, it must be said, had eschewed long ago the idea of wearing his heart on his sleeve, so he never let any would-be friend probe too deeply into his hidden emotions. He kept his demeanor decidedly cool toward other human beings, though he displayed a great deal of affection for animals of all kinds as he found their nonjudgmental company somehow more appealing than that of people. However, the career-necessitated unsettled state of his home life prevented him from keeping more than several tanks of tropical fish and one very playful Maltese as household pets, a reality he much regretted as he would have dearly enjoyed having a veritable menagerie underfoot.

Fellow employees at U.N.C.L.E., in particular the agents of his own Section II, referred to him as "The Granite Slab", a nickname indicating not only his characteristic lack of emotion, but also the honed hardness of his muscular body, and as well the impenetrable depths of his "soulless" gray eyes. Oh, there was no doubt he was an excellent spy. He knew the rules and he followed them all. He was efficient to his core. His skills were impeccable. He also made a good appearance, dressing well and always being groomed immaculately. Though English was not his native tongue and he still spoke it with a pronounced Italianesque accent, he pointedly strove to never get a colloquial idiom wrong. He was fearless, devoted to U.N.C.L.E.'s cause with an almost manic tenacity, and an expert organizer with a detail-oriented mindset. But he lacked creativity, spontaneity, human passion, and the willingness to excuse even the most mundane of mistakes in himself or in others. In short, while Jack Valdar may well have had the will and wit to make a strong individual statement within U.N.C.L.E., he had none of the qualifying heart or soul …or at least none he had ever made in any way visible to anyone at all.

Having made the required elevator descent and strode toward his ultimate destination, Jack walked perfunctorily through the pneumatic door as it automatically opened, nothing out-of-place in his carriage, person or countenance.

"Ah, Mr. Valdar," Illya Kuryakin, the Head of Section III, addressed him. "You have the new safe code at the ready?"

Jack nodded shortly by way of non-verbal answer.

"Good, good," the older man complimented absently, his attention completely returning to the mass of semi-transparent plastic-like material laid out upon his lab table. "This light manipulation suit is not something I want to leave accessible to any but those with top-level security clearance."

"Understood, sir," Jack responded automatically. He respected Kuryakin and probably came as close to liking the Russian as he came to actually liking anyone.

"It is a veritable marvel of technology," remarked Illya with noticeable awe as he fingered a portion of the suit, his blue eyes behind thick glasses glowing with scientific admiration for the object under discussion.

Jack permitted himself a bit of scientific curiosity as well and lifted one corner of the lightweight plastic, rubbing it assessingly between his thumb and forefinger.

"It seems to be made of nothing more than slightly opaque saran wrap," the CEA noted in a tone of mild surprise.

"I will grant you it does not offer much in the way of substance," Illya forwarded with a small smirk, "but it has incredible tensile strength and stretch, among its other remarkable properties."

"Though it surely affords nothing in the way of modesty," commented Valdar with distaste as he dropped the material from between his fingertips.

"I will grant you that as well," the Number 1 of Section III verbally agreed, mentally chuckling at Valdar's old-fashioned tenets of proper attire for a good field agent. The older man removed his glasses, folded them flat, and stuffed them into his lab coat pocket in a bit of physical business carried out solely to keep his amusement from openly registering on his face. "Yet such is not an issue since, once wearing it, one does become invisible to the general public."

"I suppose," conceded Jack, though he was definitely grateful such a garment was not something his profession required him to wear as a matter of course.

The light manipulation suit was a head-to-toe garment. It covered even the feet and hands in its basic one-piece construction with a zipper closure, made entirely of the same material as the rest of the outfit, running up the length from the left ankle to the neck. A hood was attached at the back of neckline, intended to slip over the head and utilize another zipper around the collarbone to secure it to the suit without any gaps in coverage. That hood concealed the face, though a fully transparent mesh of the plastic protected the areas where the eyes, nose and mouth were located, thus permitting easy sight, breathing and talking. The mesh was likely what accounted for the ever-so-slight shift in sight planes resulting in the brief undulations of light occasionally visible upon one wearing the suit. It was a minor flaw in an otherwise faultless design: a true masterpiece of covert-inspired genius.

"Truly something for the spy who has everything and does not mind possibly putting it all on display," observed Kuryakin with his usual brand of sardonic humor. "Shall we secure it from prying eyes, Mr. Valdar?"

Without the benefit of being able to look at any visual readout, Jack pressed a code into a control unit located under the lab table, finalizing by means of his right thumb the release of what was known as the "safety box" from its hidden location. An area in one side wall, an area that previously had offered no clue as to its secret purpose, slid open revealing a series of drawers, some large and some small. Illya walked to those waiting drawers, light manipulation suit in hand, and folded the garment carefully into the space of a large, though shallow, drawer near the bottom of the array. Then he nodded to Valdar, who performed the necessary closure procedure through the under-the-table control unit for the safe.

Valdar then came up beside Kuryakin and pressed the edge of his right thumbnail into that of the older man, transferring in that movement from under his own fingernail into the underside of Kuryakin's fingernail a silicate sliver imbedded with the new code for the safety box.

"I will convey the other copy of the code on to Mr. Solo at my meeting with him in his office this morning," Jack informed Illya according to accepted U.N.C.L.E. procedure for this particular undertaking.

Illya nodded and then asked with seeming casualness, "You will be present at my interrogation of the self-surrendered Thrush agent later this morning, Mr. Valdar?"

"Of course, Mr. Kuryakin," Valdar's voice came bluntly. But then he pursued the subject with some agitation and just a hint of censure, "Mr. Solo may have seen fit to dispense with some points of protocol in this particular case; nonetheless there are still standards that cannot and should not be so nonchalantly dismissed."

Illya rubbed a finger across his forehead as he determined how best to keep the discussion from deteriorating into an argumentative confrontation between them regarding Valdar's implied criticism of Napoleon's "non-procedural" treatment of the captured Thrush. Illya, however, did need to get Valdar to speak his piece in this regard so to move the CEA fully on his own side with regard to protecting U.N.C.L.E. and thus Napoleon (or perhaps, from his own personal perspective, the other way round) from machinations Kuryakin conjectured involved far more than the blatantly obvious.

"I take it you think Mr. Solo was too liberal in his dealings with the lady?" Illya questioned in just the right tone to avoid getting Jack's back up.

"It is not my place to question the tactics of the Number 1 in Section I," Jack responded as by the book as you please. "But sir," the CEA then added a more personal aside since he suspected Kuryakin thought the same in this instance as he did himself, "the woman entered his private office, effectively breaking through without a hitch every single security check in place in HQ. She got him to surrender his firearm and then proceeded to hold him at gunpoint for over two hours. She somehow even bypassed the detection of the experimental bio-drone. Finally she succeeded in getting you, his second in command, into the same room as well."

Jack shook his head in obvious frustration at what had occurred in U.N.C.L.E. headquarters the night before. "Mr. Solo is the Continental Chief for the North American division of the Command, the foremost of the five top policymakers in this organization. She wanted to get to him directly and she did so with no interference and seemingly little trouble. Marvelous new Thrush gizmo she willingly dropped into U.N.C.L.E.'s lap or not, supposedly unreserved surrender or not, under these particular circumstances, would it not be judicious for the Command to treat her as more than a routine threat?"

Illya smiled inwardly as he ran a hand through his gray-blond hair. Valdar had provided exactly the attitude he needed to keep the younger man focused on the menace at hand for U.N.C.L.E. and not on his constant personality conflicts with Solo.

With that settled to his satisfaction, Illya let Napoleon's words of the night before echo in his head: "She posed no threat to me. I could sense that." Sense that? When this Thrush agent had locked in close gun-sight range for more than two full hours the most important man in U.N.C.L.E.? She could have killed him in a single breath and escaped likely without a trace the same way she had entered headquarters. Since she hadn't done so, it had to be concluded that such was not her calculated aim, a conclusion Napoleon had instinctively come to last night. Thus did it likewise have to be assumed that such wasn't Thrush's current aim either. So what was that aim? An aim so imperative it trumped getting rid of U.N.C.L.E.'s greatest human asset once and for all?

"I suspect Mr. Solo has his reasons for doing what he did," Illya steadfastly refused to condemn out-of-hand the over-confident actions of his very people-attuned friend. "I have never known him not to have reasons for his actions, and I have known him for many years. Yet we, Mr. Valdar," he got to the heart of the matter, "will make it our particular business, as indeed it is our duty in U.N.C.L.E.'s behalf, to discover why **she** did as she did. Thrush plots seldom run in a straight and narrow path, and I suspect this one might have more crooked angles than most."

Jack nodded slightly, giving no more indication of an agreement between them than that, for no more than that was surely required.

* * *

The U.N.C.L.E. guards eyed the monitor with unhidden curiosity as the woman ensconced within the safety of the secure holding cell paced in a constant pattern back-and-forth across the entire width of the small room. Barefoot and clad in a standard-issue black jumpsuit the Command supplied to prisoners when necessary, the Thrush agent looked as restless as any caged animal. She had a tendency to raise herself up high on the balls of her feet every so often to fully stretch her thin body, like a dancer preparing for a performance.

The guards were well aware she could not hear anything they might say. The strange earcuff she had worn the night before had been taken from her along with the light manipulation suit in which she had been clothed. U.N.C.L.E. lab technicians had revealed the ostentatious and rather damning piece of jewelry as a hearing aid of unique design. Still, when within auditory range of her cell, the guards were circumspect enough to say nothing that might possibly prove to an enemy's advantage. Yet when they only watched her on the monitor, that circumspection was all but utterly abandoned as they found themselves almost hypnotically drawn to her movements, intrigued by her very presence.

The Thrushie stopped her measured pacing momentarily as she bit at the knuckle of her right forefinger, holding it trapped within the sphere of her straight, white teeth. Her U.N.C.L.E. captors had allowed her to sleep through the night, as she had needed to do. The fatigue engendered by the tight control she had been required to maintain throughout the long encounter in Solo's office had all but left her fighting not to physically collapse in front of the security task force who had brought her here afterwards. But she simply had not permitted herself that childish indulgence. She had been trained more painstakingly than that. She had kept herself alert and on her feet until at last, after being methodically stripped and searched and deprived of her capacity to hear, she had fallen into an almost coma-like sleep upon the cell's small but comfortable cot.

She was refreshed now. She was ready. She knew what needed to be done and, when Kuryakin came to question her, she would be able to do it with no twinges of emotional doubt and no great physical hardship. She had planned this, and her plan was running true to form. There would be the anticipated end with which she had taunted Solo the night before. Oh, not that such an end would be swift. All steps had to be measured. All thoughts centered. She had been laboriously preparing for this for years, for decades. She would not fail, not in this. She had promised long ago.

Stretching upward on the balls of her feet once more, the woman arched her slender, long column of neck, finally throwing back her head while biting down harder upon the knuckle she yet held captive between her teeth.

_"Papa, I swear it will be as you wanted," she mentally chanted toward the heavens, eyes closing for a long moment. "I will use what you gave me to gain what you most desired. I do not forget!"_

* * *

"She's a rookie agent," stated Jack, his tone deliberately flat.

"As concise a statement of fact as ever I've heard," retorted Solo in just as deliberately flat a tone.

The CEA sat in the office of the Continental Chief here in NY headquarters as the oil and water of their personalities were being shaken once more into opposition.

"All agents start out as rookies," forwarded Napoleon, his eyes telegraphing to Valdar that he would brook no objections on this particular score. "Your wealth of experience should aid in cultivating her from green to seasoned sooner rather than later."

Jack Valdar bit his lip and held his tongue. He considered Solo's high-handed tactic of pairing him with U.N.C.L.E.'s new wunderkind as deliberately unfair, but he knew he couldn't give voice to that highly emotional feeling. In his private thoughts Jack couldn't help but morosely note, "The man is always gunning for me somehow or other." However, a perfunctory "Yes sir" was the only verbal response he permitted himself.

Napoleon let his dark eyes sweep over Jack's stiff carriage. The CEA's hands, where they rested on the revolving desk, formed half-fists, the thumbs twitching involuntarily as the man mentally fought from fully clenching those fists.

Despite what others thought, even what Valdar himself thought, Napoleon did not dislike the man. He just didn't really understand him. And that admittedly was an odd position for Solo in which to find himself, a position that sometimes made him react with less than his usual responsive warmth.

"Questo è solo un temporaneo partenariato, Jack," Solo sought to soothe the other man's well-controlled but definitely-present ire by speaking the line in Italian, since he knew that language was Jack's natural one.  
{Translation: This is only a temporary partnership, Jack.}

The attempted salve only served to make Jack further stiffen his already ramrod straight back. He hated it when Solo condescended in that supposedly charming manner of his to converse with him in his native tongue as if he was a child to be pacified with familiar sounds.

"Of course, sir," Jack acknowledged pointedly in English. "Is she to be indoctrinated with regards to the Russian Arms Affair?"

For the moment Solo gave up his futile attempts to come to some sort of accord with this difficult man. "Yes, she is," he therefore simply informed the younger male.

"She has little more than a week to make up what she has already missed of the indoctrination, as well as keep current pace in that regard with the rest of the team," Jack tried the reasonable approach.

"She won't need the intense training regarding arms design as such is one of her specialties as an operative," Napoleon bounced back that approach with equal reason. "And I assume, Jack, as CEA you are fully capable of bringing her up to speed on the rest."

Jack bristled, yet managed to keep his visage unrevealing of his inner turmoil.

"May I suggest, sir," Valdar next spoke in a perfectly respectful if less than pleasant tone, "that she is hardly ready to handle so complicated a mission."

"She has the right qualifications," supplied Napoleon in complete Number 1 of Section I not-to-be-second-guessed mode. "Her Russian is fluent, she has a thorough working knowledge of arms of every type, and her marksmanship is the best of all U.N.C.L.E. personnel, even those with years of experience in the field."

The last remark stung Valdar just as Solo knew it would when he had chosen to word it the way he had. He knew Jack spent at the firing range whatever time he could spare between missions and the administrative headaches that were part and parcel of the CEA position. His striving to beat or at least match the target results of one Natasha Kuryakin was fodder for gossip throughout NY HQ. Though Jack had come close, he hadn't yet been able to accomplish this feat. Still, he kept trying. Jack Valdar was nothing if not tenacious.

"There is no doubt of her talent as a sharpshooter," Valdar conceded as he kept his voice level and controlled.

"I'm glad you willingly recognize her expertise in that area," snapped out Napoleon perhaps a bit callously, but Jack's personality rubbed his nerves raw. He hated getting into these ever-so-polite confrontations with the younger man. Once, just once, he wished Jack would release his tightly reined temper when in his presence, and thus clear the air between them once and for all. But Solo was the Number 1 of Section I, and thus for him to initiate the open venting of any antagonism between himself and his Chief Enforcement Agent was not diplomatically prudent.

Fortunately just then Solo's intercom buzzed. Responding to the insistent sound, the Continental Chief was informed by his secretary that Enforcement Agent Kuryakin was waiting outside in time for the meeting he had previously requested with her.

"Send her in," Napoleon advised his assistant, watching as Jack's severe face became even more guarded, if that was at all possible.

"Morning," Natasha sensibly left the affectionate Dyadya off her address to her superior.

Jack politely rose from his seat at the young woman's entrance, but he offered no verbal greeting.

"Good morning, Natasha," Solo smoothly transitioned past the awkward moment. "Have a seat, won't you?"

Obligingly Natasha took a chair to the right of Valdar as the CEA regained his own seat. Napoleon was pleased to see that Natasha had heeded his advice and dressed professionally for this meeting. In a cowl-neck white cashmere sweater and black-and-white hound's-tooth wool skirt appropriately fitted to facilitate concealment of the thigh-holster storing her U.N.C.L.E. Special, with a finishing touch of half-calf low-heeled black leather boots, Natasha looked older and thus more accomplished in her chosen occupation than her barely twenty-three years and limited field experience could boast.

"As you likely are aware," Solo easily went into the next phase of this meeting, "it is preferred practice here at U.N.C.L.E. to team Enforcement Agents into two-person partnerships. We have found over the years that such provides the most efficient working relationships in the field. Having someone who is familiar with how you work, with how you think, with how you will react in threatening situations, results in fewer dead operatives and more successfully completed missions.

"The ingredients of a good partnership are more esoteric than would be supposed," furthered Napoleon without pause for thought. He had given this speech over the years more times than he cared to recall to more agents than he honestly could count. "So hitting upon the right blend of personalities and abilities is often a matter of experimentation. Thus trial partnerships are a necessary step in determining who matches best with whom in the long term."

Solo did pause for emphasis now, allowing his gaze to center first on the gray-eyed one of Jack Valdar and then on the blue-eyed one of Natasha Kuryakin. Though no hint of his innermost thoughts showed on his face, Napoleon mentally chided himself, "You better have gotten this one right, Solo." Then he relaxed his mind back into the unfettered confines of what his instincts regarding people had always exposed to him without undue pondering.

"You, Mr. Valdar, because of some unfortunate recent circumstances, currently have no partner," Solo directed his remark to Jack. "You, Ms. Kuryakin," he veered his vocal attention toward Natasha, "are a new agent who has never yet had any partner. So I have decided," Napoleon now encompassed both agents within his directive, "that a trial partnership between the two of you could prove of great benefit to U.N.C.L.E."

Natasha was floored, though she kept her surprise to herself. To pair a rookie agent with the Number 1 of Section II was virtually unheard of. She glanced askance at Valdar where he sat so straight and unyielding in his chair. She knew the current CEA had lost his partner of four years, the previous CEA Chris Larson, some three months ago in an unexpected terrorist bombing in France. Valdar had been working missions on his own since that time. Though U.N.C.L.E. tittle-tattle had never painted a picture of Valdar and his ex-partner as particularly close, she knew they had respected one another and worked rather well together. Thus Natasha had some compassion for Jack being too-soon after the loss of an established partner settled even temporarily with a woman he didn't know from Adam (or rather Eve), except that she was Illya Kuryakin's daughter and thus part of a "distinguished bloodline" within the annals of the history of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

"I am honored to have the chance to work so closely with you, Mr. Valdar," Natasha turned her attention to the CEA and extended him her hand by way of bridging the uncomfortable professional and social gap that existed between them.

Jack stared at her for a long moment, a clumsily long moment. Finally he extended his own hand and grasped hers lightly, shaking that hand with nothing more than mechanical courtesy.

Napoleon watched it all through hooded eyes. He was proud of Natasha's tactful handling of the situation, but Jack… This certainly wasn't going to be easy. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, as the old saying went.

"That being said," Solo picked up the conversational ball as he rose from his own chair in favor of casually perching on his desk just to the right of where Natasha sat beside Jack, "I think it well for you to understand, Natasha, that you are being given a chance not generally made available to rookie agents. Learn all you can from Mr. Valdar and always remember he is your superior not only in rank but also in experience. Do not hesitate to give your input where warranted, but ultimately his decisions are to be obeyed."

"Of course," Natasha acquiesced without so much as a blink. Yet how the hell she was going to work side-by-side with 'The Granite Slab' she honestly had no clue. She was sure he would treat her like nothing more than a go-fer and that she would chafe, her skills virtually unused, under his heavy-handed wielding of authority.

"Jack," Napoleon now directed his remarks to the other half of the new partnership, "remember that Ms. Kuryakin is a trained operative, even if her experience is far less vast than your own. Her opinions are always to be considered. All final decisions on any mission are yours, but never forget that two heads are often better than one. And make particular note of her especial talents and utilize those accordingly. Never assume that simply being a veteran of the field will always make you the best one of the pair to shoulder responsibility for a particular facet of any operation."

Jack nodded shortly, his mind already translating his superior's admonition as "Don't make this a one-man show", something he had already been well aware he wouldn't be licensed to do since his rookie partner was Natasha Kuryakin. She had heritage on her side, after all.

"I assume an additional briefing regarding the Russian Arms Affair will take place later today with all agents involved, so that Ms. Kuryakin can be properly acclimated into the group. Therefore, if that is all for the present, sir," Valdar interjected into the brief pause that had ensued, "I need to certify the security setup of the interrogation room for Mr. Kuryakin's questioning of the female Thrush agent in less than an hour."

Solo nodded his dismissal of his Number 1 in Section II, and the other man rose from his chair and headed (more than willingly, it must be noted) toward the door. However, before he could reach the portal without interference, Napoleon, who had also risen from his perch on the desk, waylaid the younger man by pressing a hand in honest kindliness upon his shoulder.

"Non lotta su questo, Jack," he counseled the CEA in Italian, knowing Natasha did not speak that language and thus that their exchange was private. "Alla fine i risultati potrebbero sorprendervi."  
{Translation: Don't fight me on this, Jack. In the end the results might surprise you.}

Jack said nothing, merely straightened his shoulders. Napoleon heeded the bodily signal and removed his hand, freeing Valdar to stride purposefully out through the pneumatic door as it automatically opened in response to the nearness of his badge. The Number 1 in Section I stood for a second in silence after the exit of the Number 1 in Section II, his back to the young agent yet seated before the revolving desk.

"You've thrown me head-first right into the soup, haven't you, Dyadya?" Natasha's words finally brought Napoleon's attention back to the young woman.

Solo turned to face his goddaughter once more, noting the little frown that pulled at the corners of her mouth.

"Time to sink or swim, Natasha," he advised her succinctly as he rotated the desk so the monitor, currently displaying a copy of the file for the Russian Arms Affair, lay directly before her.

Natasha glanced down briefly at the monitor display as Napoleon continued, "This mission fits your skill set, Natasha. Yet you surely understand, if I pegged you for this important an early assignment without putting a qualifier of sorts on things, there would be those within this organization who would assume you are getting special treatment because of who is your father."

"And pairing me with the CEA for the North American division of U.N.C.L.E. defuses that speculation exactly how?" demanded the young woman with unmistakable curtness.

"Honey, if you can set up a successful working relationship with Jack Valdar by gaining his respect," stated Napoleon in a mollifying tone, "you will definitely obtain the good opinion of just about everyone in U.N.C.L.E. regarding your abilities as a field operative. Definitely it will grant you a 'first-class working partner' status with all of the Section II agents. So you see I'm not indulging in any form of backhand nepotism by partnering you with Jack. I'm submitting you to a real test by fire, and it's one you better pass if you want to have a successful career here."

Blue eyes stared into brown for a long moment, the challenge raised in the brown eyes fully and finally accepted by the blue. Those blue eyes then focused downward on the inlaid monitor screen once more as Natasha took several minutes to peruse the basic details of the Russian Arms Affair.

"All right, Dyadya," Natasha finally acceded gamely though perhaps less than optimistically. "But I would consider myself remiss in my duty not to tell my ultimate superior how discontented I am not with the assignment but with the administrative decision made regarding my partner pairing."

"Duly noted," confirmed Napoleon. "I will see to it the necessary notation of protest is made in the personnel files."

The young woman nodded and then commented with all expected professionalism, "Since I now have security access to this file," she waved a hand toward what was displayed on the monitor in front of her, "I will study it fully at my own desk."

With that, Natasha rose, but she still planted a quick kiss on Solo's cheek before departing the office of the Number 1 in Section I. She let that brief token of affection serve to reassure Napoleon she did not hold his official actions as her superior against him as her beloved Dyadya.

After her departure, Napoleon rubbed the fingers of one hand absently across his forehead. He had set himself up for one whale of a headache, both literally and figuratively.

"Definitely a shot in the dark," he mused to no one in particular. And then his intuition corrected that admission, "More like 25 rounds at midnight," though his lips left the correction unspoken.

* * *

**Act III: Procedure 1:**

The interrogation room was basically the same as rooms used for this purpose in various security-minded establishments all over the world. Gray unadorned walls. A plain table bolted to the floor and flanked by two less-than-comfortable chairs, one for interrogator and one for interrogated, situated on opposing long sides of that table. An elongated steel loop on the table surface meant to secure handcuffs should such be deemed necessary for safety purposes when confronting the interrogated. Gray concrete floor sporting another elongated steel loop under the interrogated's side of the table, just in case ankle restraints were called for as well. A plastic pitcher of ice water and several likewise plastic glasses. A one-way glass viewing station. An intercom system. A locked door. Nothing fancy other than the video/audio monitoring/recording center built into a projecting stand on one wall and slanted in such a way as to visually allow the video to capture a full facial angle on the interrogated and a side profile of the interrogator. Just an interrogation room. As serviceable a stage for the presentation of an espionage drama as any other.

The female Thrush agent took in her surroundings as she waited patiently for the arrival of her interrogator. Discreetly standing behind her where she sat was the man she recognized as the head of the security detail from last night: the tall, muscular agent with the sharp features and even sharper manner. She knew more agents assigned to keep her from escape stood at the ready beyond the barrier of the door. She was unbound however. U.N.C.L.E., unlike Thrush, was basically a benevolent captor, though the woman found her bare feet were cold where they rested flat against the concrete floor.

The door slid open via means of the release of an electronic locking mechanism on the outside of the room as the interrogator, Illya Kuryakin, entered.

"Good morning," he addressed the Thrushie.

"If you wish me to hear your questions," the woman informed him without any obligatory civil prologue, "you will need to return my earcuff."

"Ah yes, the earcuff," commented Illya as he made sure not to move his face from her ready line of sight, thus allowing her to read his lips. "A thing of genius to be sure. We did test it thoroughly and found no transmission devices or other oddities in its basic design, so of course I can return it to you. Or…" he began and then formulated the remainder of his remark in the accepted sign language internationally used by the deaf, "I can sign the questions to you."

She just stared at him, refusing to even acknowledge his latter suggestion. Correctly ascertaining her answer from that lack of response, Illya walked toward the woman, removed the thrush-designed diamond earcuff from his shirt pocket, and simply handed it to her. The Thrushie accepted the item from his hand and set it properly on and within her left ear.

"You are completely deaf without the aid of that device?" came Illya's accompanying question.

"I am profoundly nerve deaf," she returned evenly. "This device was designed especially to compensate for my particular condition, which is decidedly rare."

Illya nodded shortly and then went over to the recording station and set a special form of compact disk within not just one but two drives that served the equipment. The two drives operated completely independent of one another, thus all but eliminating the chance of accidental or purposeful tampering with the recording, as there was always an immediate reliable backup available.

"Date: December 22nd, 2007. Time: 0900 hours by the Eastern Standard. Location: New York Headquarters for the North American division of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. In accordance with standard interrogation procedures published within the public charter, established 1946, last revised 2005, of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, I hereby make it known to all parties that the entirety of this interrogation session will be both video and audio recorded with all thus documented testimony entered permanently into the files of the Command," Illya made the necessary initial statement for the record while directly facing the video eye of the machine.

The woman smirked. "All very upfront and legal," she noted.

Illya ignored her as he further stated for the record, "Interrogator for this session: Illya Nickovech Kuryakin, currently Number 1 in Section III, Enforcement and Intelligence, North American division of U.N.C.L.E. Present in security capacity: Jacques Valdar, currently Number 1 in Section II, Operations and Enforcement, North American division of U.N.C.L.E."

Then Kuryakin's attention returned to the woman as he crossed to the center of the room and seated himself within the chair located on the opposite side of the table from her own.

"Please state your name and pertinent organizational information for the official record," he launched the usual first volley into a captive's questioning.

"Delphina Reikedahl, attached to the organization known as Thrush," she responded without hesitation.

_From the privacy of his office where he was actively monitoring the interrogation, Napoleon Solo pricked up his ears. Reikedahl? Surely it wasn't possible… No, of course not, he schooled himself into composure. Reikedahl was not an uncommon Norwegian name. Likely there was no connection. Still, something in the pit of his stomach was churning and threatening to bring bile up into his throat._

Within the interrogation room, Illya eyed the woman for a moment in silence. The name had registered with him as well.

"State your rank within the organization known as Thrush," the Russian nevertheless proceeded straightforwardly.

"I have no rank within said organization," the woman called Delphina responded slowly and certainly. "I merely exist within said organization."

A heartbeat of silence and then Illya's next request, "Please expound upon that statement."

"Certainly," Delphina agreed as a wry and very disconcerting smile curved her lips. "I am what is casually referenced, within the organization known as Thrush, as a technological residual."

"Meaning you were used as a guinea pig in scientific experimentation?" probed Illya, though his throat felt parched suddenly.

"I was a research subject for scientific experimentation, yes," acknowledged the woman. "But I was never used. I agreed to everything that was done to me."

Her hazel-brown eyes, so like Napoleon's and yet to Illya so vastly different, held his gaze steadily. Illya reserved his caustic retort as he took the time to pour himself a glass of water and sip briefly of the cool liquid before continuing.

"Recount the basic premise of such experimentation," Kuryakin demanded in a controlled voice.

"Human bio-chemical, bio-electrical and bio-magnetic manipulation," Delphina kept up her part in the game.

"And the initiator of this research?" the necessary dreaded question dropped from Kuryakin's lips as he refused through sheer force-of-will to let his gaze leave that of the woman.

"My father, Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl," came the dreaded answer.

"_Steady on, Illya," remarked Solo softly, knowing his always partner could not hear him in the interrogation room, but still wanting somehow to provide moral support in this prickly confrontation. "It was more than forty years ago and I survived intact, remember. We both lived to fight another day. Hell, lots more days! We're both old men now and my health never suffered."_

Though Jack did not understand the cause of the tension that had invaded the interrogation room, he did understand the sheer potency and possible hazard of it. Accordingly he increased his already very tight vigilance over the Thrush, and it was then he saw it. She held something in the palm of her hand, a hand she kept on the seat of her chair and thus below the table and out of ready sight lines. All but completely hidden by the long sleeve of her jumpsuit, the something looked to be a portable music-player, a tiny iPod. She was cleverly manipulating the dial on the unit as well as popping off exposed bits and then easily replacing them using only a thumb and forefinger in movements too slight to be detected through her shoulders or arms. He had never seen anyone so skilled at sleight of hand.

Breaking through the strain of the moment, Valdar came forward and took the object from the woman's grasp, placing it flat on the table before Kuryakin without uttering a single word. Then he removed a set of handcuffs from his belt, passed the chain through the elongated steel loop on the table and affixed the bracelets to the woman's wrists. Just as he performed this last action and was checking the surety and fit of the bracelets, Delphina gazed up pointedly at him. Her less-than-fleeting glance caused Jack to momentarily furrow his brow as he could not help but wonder exactly what she was thinking.

"Very good, stern one," Delphina mentally commended the unaware Chief Enforcement Agent. "You indeed have all the potential I suspected last night."

Kuryakin lifted the iPod, fingering it casually. "You thought a musical interlude might prove soothing?" he exacted with considered aloofness.

The Thrushie shrugged.

"I am easily bored," was all she provided by way of explanation.

"Where did you get this?" pressed Illya.

Delphina shrugged yet again.

"Your guards, when in close physical proximity, apparently only worry about a prisoner's capacity to successfully escape and not whether such has the capacity to successfully pickpocket," she censured easily.

"I will see that Section V provides the cell guards involved a refresher course in proper prisoner surveillance techniques, sir," the Number 1 in Section II assured the Number 1 in Section III.

"Indeed, Mr. Valdar," approved Illya as he casually pocketed the portable music-player.

"Shall we continue with the interrogation, Mr. Kuryakin?" supplied Delphina with perfect aplomb before that interrogator could himself even venture to resume the session. "We were speaking of my father, I believe," she purposefully taunted as Illya fixed his eyes back upon her.

"I was about to mention I read his obituary in U.N.C.L.E.'s files about a decade ago," deadpanned Kuryakin in an attempt to crack through the woman's poised veneer. "One of those rare Thrush scientists who died peacefully in his bed."

Though Illya's face revealed nothing, Delphina unerringly gauged the slight uneasiness of his body language. "Just so, but his memory does, not so peacefully, live on, no?" she therefore pricked with barbed accuracy.

Illya would not allow himself to be pulled unresisting into this woman's sleek trap. Yes, the memory of Reikedahl did not live "peacefully" in his mind, but he was not going to go down that thorny garden path. He did have a trump card up his mental sleeve. His own recollections had brought back in his mind's eye a certain child, an exceptionally distinctive child, as the fates would have it, whose adoration for her father had been apparent even to the casual observer. And Illya, especially in his field agent days, had never been but a casual observer. His powers of observation had been sharp, clear and unfettered by politeness back then. And he fell back upon the full insolence of such unfettered powers now.

"Ms. Reikedahl," he posed his query, eyes hard and face emotionless, "were you born with oculocutaneous albinism?"

For the first time Delphina's composed mask seemed to slip a little, but she recovered in less than a heartbeat.

"So you do remember me, Mr. Kuryakin," she stated flatly. "Though I suppose an albino child happened upon during a raid of a Thrush medical lab would stand out in memory even after the passage of more than four decades."

Now Jack Valdar was no medical expert or anything, but heck the woman he was looking at here in this room was surely no albino. She had those white lashes and brows, true; yet her skin tone and her eyes, especially her undeniably dark eyes, were not the characteristic traits of an albino.

_Behind his great desk Solo pointedly swallowed. Bad times had a way of catching up with you, didn't they? Even bad times so far in the past._

"I must, therefore, assume you most vitally remember my father as well, yes, Mr. Kuryakin?" Delphina completely regained her equilibrium and charged relentlessly forward on her own steady path. "He had a unique scientific fascination with your Mr. Solo to which you took rather nasty exception, if my memory serves. Surely you recall this singular interest and thus him?"

Illya didn't respond.

"Shall I tell you then what I remember? So to refresh your mind?" Delphina ground through the shattered glass of old memories. "Mr. Solo had been captured and made the guest of Thrush. However, his… welcoming committee," she worded with a wicked grin, "had seen fit to drug him liberally with hallucinogens in order to keep him disoriented and uncoordinated. Papa was livid at that. A hallucinating subject could cause a myriad of issues with regard to proper scientific investigation."

_Napoleon pressed a hand upon the flat surface of his desk, his knuckles turning white from the sheer force with which he made contact with that surface. His mind, meanwhile, churned out useless reassurances all in the vein of "It's been over for years, Illya. I survived. Don't let her lead you back there."_

"So, before proceeding with the necessities required by his research, Papa insisted on waiting out the two days it took for the complete flushing of the drugs from Mr. Solo's system. A delay about which the representative from Thrush Central was none too happy," Delphina's words continued to weave their spell, "and which unfortunately turned out to provide you, Mr. Kuryakin, with all the time needed to ascertain Mr. Solo's general whereabouts."

Jack took note that the woman's "my father" had fallen into the more familiar "Papa". She was herself being drawn into the web of the past she was so expertly spinning.

"Still, the man from Central acceded to his insistence because Papa righteously refused to carry on otherwise," the Thrush agent continued. "Papa did, however, compromise to some extent by agreeing to administer a specific form of paralyzing agent to Mr. Solo, a type which affected only voluntary muscles while allowing all involuntary ones to function normally. Thus was U.N.C.L.E.'s top enforcement agent kept awake, but completely unable to move or speak. In fact, he could do nothing but lie still, aware of everything and yet firmly chained by the induced unresponsiveness of his own body."

Illya stared straight ahead, the steady surveillance of his blue eyes surely capable of boring clean through the skull and reminiscing brain of the woman before him.

"The technicians put in intravenous lines to keep him hydrated, and more tubes to perform other necessary tasks," Delphina painted the picture with vague yet still incisive phrases, so much so that even Jack squirmed a bit under the disturbing hex of them.

_In his office, Napoleon paled noticeably, only there was no one to see._

"Enough," commanded Illya with a store of ingrained reserve that surprised even himself.

"Then you arrived on the scene," Delphina ignored his order as she raised the volume of her voice, "heroically hell-bent on a rescue of your partner, though you had no idea what exactly had happened to him or where exactly he might be secreted in that lab. Instead of him you found me… or rather I found you. Papa had sent me to look for you especially, you see. And when I found you, I told you I knew where the 'dark-haired man with the warm brown eyes' was 'resting' and that I would take you to him. You trusted me because who would not trust an innocent child?"

It all came back so vividly to Illya. That lab, the almost ghostly child who was so small and yet seemingly so confident in her ability to bring him to Solo… The guileless way she had taken hold of his hand to guide him to the place where his partner, she assured him, was "resting"…

"I was five years old," Delphina played out the scene in words, "well almost six, and I was extremely proud Papa had entrusted me with a 'big-girl' task. I took you up to the observers' gallery of the operating theatre and, as had been prearranged, they ambushed you there, several big, burly Thrush guards with their automatic rifles. They knocked you unconscious and then strapped you into a chair in the gallery where you had a bird's-eye view to all the proceedings going on in the operating theatre below."

And Illya was there again, there more surely than he was here in a generic interrogation room at U.N.C.L.E. HQ. There in the specially-equipped observers' gallery of an operating theatre in a Thrush medical lab, strapped firmly in a chair, waking up to…

"When you woke up, Papa was there in the operating theatre," Delphina's voice droned on, insidiously worming its way into Illya's own memories, "with your Mr. Solo secured to a gurney by means of straps across his forehead, shoulders, elbows, wrists, calves and ankles. Even though the man was thoroughly helpless from having already been administered a somewhat riskily large dose of the paralyzing drug, nothing was left to chance. Several cameras had also been set up in the theatre to provide close-up video feed to various monitors situated about the gallery. One of these focused solely on the face of your partner, providing continual evidence of his completely conscious and alert state. From that gallery, we watched everything unfold below: you, me, two strong guards brandishing automatic rifles at the back of your head, and the man from Thrush Central who sat leisurely sipping a drink the entire time. Papa would announce a procedure number and he and his team would perform all such entailed as I informed you, with the knowledge I had so painstakingly learned by rote, exactly what was being done to Mr. Solo."

Helpless, totally useless… Bound and gagged and compelled to watch… Struggling ineffectually against the circulation-interfering straps that held his body tightly in place… Struggling at least more effectually against the nausea that swept over him in waves… Not wanting to see the combination of grit and panic reflected equally in his partner's eyes… Not wanting to look away and thus leave that partner isolated within the horror…

Sweat broke out on Illya's brow.

"Procedure 1: skin scraping; nail clipping; hair clipping; eyelash sample; tongue scraping; epiglottal scraping; gum scraping; tooth extraction," Delphina listed off as if she had memorized it all but yesterday instead of forty long years ago.

_Napoleon gagged reflexively. He certainly remembered._

"Procedure 2: tear swab; saliva swab; nasal swab; perspiration swab; tonsil swab; vocal cord scraping; fingerprinting; blood draw; semen sample; urine sample."

Jack felt his stomach growing queasy at this revelation of the extreme invasion of bodily privacy done to an U.N.C.L.E. agent under the sadistic auspices of Thrush. While there were surely more physically debilitating torture methods, this had to be the most mentally vicious measure of which he had ever heard tell. He thanked the powers of fate that he had never needed to endure anything in this vein during his own career as a field agent. Oh, he had been drugged, shot, knifed, battered with two-by-fours and baseball bats, subjected to the sting of whips and the bite of burning implements, but he had never had to sit by powerless yet fully aware while he was probed, pulled, plucked and plundered by supposed scientists like an animal that was part of a lab dissection.

Delphina continued her narration in a voice almost hypnotic in quality.

"Procedure 3: hearing decibel test; vocal cord vibration test; lung capacity test; heart rhythm scan; brain wave scan; retinal scan; electro-magnetic nerve reflection; bio-magnetic chemical refraction; pituitary incision; spinal tap."

"I remember," Illya at last interrupted her as he regained mental association with the present, though his again dry throat made his voice sound roughly hoarse.

"Yes, I suspect you do, Mr. Kuryakin," conceded Delphina, unfazed by the disruption in her dramatic description of the past. "Surely it would be a difficult thing to forget, and you did have such a perfect vantage point to survey it all. I remember, as you surely must, that there was then some talk in the theatre of putting Mr. Solo under general anesthesia for the next procedures, but it was decided against. After all, he was so effectively paralyzed, he couldn't bother the operating team with extraneous movements and he wasn't even able to scream. Even a local anesthetic was deemed an unwarranted indulgence since the man from Thrush Central was adamant U.N.C.L.E.'s top enforcement agent be 'obliged to exploit his impeccable training' by experiencing the pain unmitigated."

_Napoleon's shoulders shook momentarily, but he quickly controlled his body's involuntary response to the imposed mental images. "It's not happening now!" he reminded himself sternly. "It's just words!" But it is undeniable truth that words do have power._

"Procedure 4:" announced Delphina in a strong voice, "cartilage scraping; tendon scraping; muscle scraping; nerve ganglia scraping; bone scraping; spinal disk vibration; spinal disk scraping; bone marrow draw."

"I said I remember," Illya spat out through clenched teeth.

"Procedure 5:" Delphina recited, ignoring the rising sense of revulsion that had quietly invaded the room, "spleen biopsy; stomach biopsy; intestinal biopsy; liver biopsy; heart muscle biopsy; lung biopsy.

"Procedure 6: appendectomy," she emphasized this last with terse efficiency.

There was dead silence in the interrogation room for at least a full count of twenty seconds.

_Ensconced within the seclusion of his office, Napoleon strode toward the standing bar and poured himself a stiff drink. Scotch neat: no soda; no water; no ice. He threw it back into his throat in one huge gulp and then refilled his glass. At least he had this form of Dutch courage to steady his nerves. In the interrogation room several floors below Illya had no means of such even temporary respite to warm the shocking plunge into the icy waters of merciless memories._

"Mr. Solo did finally pass out somewhere during the course of that last procedure," Delphina unperturbedly tied up her performance. "Papa used some experimental methods, including several needle aspiration techniques, and thus performed an amazingly minimal amount of scalpel work for the required internal organ scrapings and biopsies. The appendectomy, however, was a completely standard surgery requiring all usual cutting. Following so hard upon the ordeal of the other far from hurt-free procedures, I imagine the pain of that last was quite excruciating and beyond the limits of conscious endurance even for a man of Mr. Solo's impeccable training."

Illya locked his ice-blue eyes on the hazel-brown ones of Delphina, flints of fire reflecting in the depths of those pale sapphire orbs.

"Yes, I remember. I even remember the narration your father chattily supplied to the gallery during that final operation, a recounting of the discussion that had gone on previously regarding which of Mr. Solo's organs to remove for further systemic analysis," supplied Kuryakin in a voice that should have blistered the very metal of the walls. "Spleen? Tonsils? Ah yes, the appendix. That one will do nicely since it serves no irreplaceable need in the body."

A thin, arctic smile stretched the lips of the Thrush technological residual.

"You do indeed have an impeccable memory, Mr. Kuryakin," she complimented with just the slightest undercurrent of scorn in her tone. "So I assume you also remember that, even as my father," she returned to a less personal address of her male parent now that the main brunt of the tale had been unfolded to her satisfaction, "was in the midst of that appendectomy, the Thrush Central representative was continually urging he remove Mr. Solo's heart instead. Being a humane man with no desire to murder his test subject, he categorically refused."

"Humane?" repeated Illya in a voice straight from the icy wastes of Siberia. "Your father was a madman who thought he could pilfer through a human body as if seeking for a prize in a cracker-jack box, and all under the supposedly edifying guise of scientific research."

Delphina stiffened noticeably.

"The final truth remains," she succinctly summarized, "nothing my father did permanently damaged Mr. Solo. He could easily have killed him. That was not his goal and not his wish."

"No, his goal was to methodically loot Mr. Solo's person and then use those medically ill-gotten gains for his personal brand of technological lunacy," Kuryakin gave his own succinct summary. "What his wish may have been, I don't know and can't pretend to care."

Jack loudly cleared his throat, loud enough to bring Illya's chilly but unmistakably incensed tirade into check.

"While the reliving of ancient history might seem a worthwhile pastime to you, Ms. Reikedahl," Illya now tethered the focus of the interrogation back into more current themes, "it avails nothing with regard to explaining your voluntary surrender to U.N.C.L.E. last night."

"Doesn't it?" disputed Delphina languidly.

"No," the Russian pronounced in a tone that left no room for discussion. "So let me redirect our conversation to more pertinent matters. What can you tell me about the light manipulation suit you utilized to breach U.N.C.L.E. security?"

"It worked," responded Delphina with irritating pithiness.

"How?" pushed back Illya even more monosyllabically.

The Thrush technological residual raised one fine, pure white eyebrow at her interrogator. Then she shrugged.

"I'm no engineer or scientist," she batted back coolly. "You will have to figure out how the suit works for yourself, Mr. Kuryakin."

"That is not what I mean and well you know it," countered Illya.

"Perhaps," conceded Delphina, "but then again perhaps not. Either way you are not yet ready to hear all I have to say."

Now it was Illya who raised an eyebrow at her.

"Oh? And why is that?" he demanded to be told.

"Because you have not yet broken through all the walls of memory," she stated matter-of-factly. "And until you are willing to do so, I will have nothing more to say."

Illya set his lips in a straight and uncompromising line, more than ready and far from reluctant to turn this into a battle of wills between himself and this woman.

"End the session now, Illya," Solo's voice over the room's intercom quickly forestalled any such attempt on Kuryakin's part.

"Interrogation of the prisoner is not yet complete," protested Illya in a tight tone.

"End the session now, Illya," repeated Solo's voice over the intercom. "That's an order."

"Yes… sir," acquiesced Kuryakin sulkily.

Though he had addressed his closest friend with the perfunctory "sir" title that was generally intended to give deference to the other man's position, it was certainly not deference that was seething within Illya's heart and mind at this precise moment. Nonetheless he obeyed his superior's order and wrapped up the session with the request for Valdar to validate on the official record that questioning of the prisoner was ended at that juncture upon the directive of Napoleon Solo, Number 1 of Section I, Policy and Operations, North American division of U.N.C.L.E.

* * *

"Why did you do that?" the fiercely angry words were already spewing out of Illya's mouth even before the pneumatic door to Solo's office had automatically shut behind his entrance.

Seated behind his revolving desk, Solo looked up into his friend's face and found that familiar visage uncharacteristically flushed crimson with fury.

"You know exactly why," Napoleon responded pointedly.

"Humor me," spat back Kuryakin, refusing to accept such an unsatisfying answer.

"Because she had gotten the upper hand in the interrogation," Napoleon spelled it out bluntly, though he was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Illya already knew this irrefutable truth.

"And I was about to take it back!" protested Illya, his temper still flaring. "Did you not trust me to do that?" he demanded as he frustratedly flopped into a nearby chair.

Solo rose from his own seat and crossed to the bar as he assured his friend, "After all that has passed between us over the years, Illya, don't you think that a rather unmerited question?"

Napoleon removed a bottle of vodka from the small refrigeration unit under the bar, poured a hefty measure of the clear fluid into a crystal tumbler, crossed to where Kuryakin sat, and finally extended the glass of chilled liquor to his friend.

"I am well aware of your abilities as an interrogator," Napoleon stated by way of unnecessary conciliation. "My decision had nothing whatever to do with a lack of trust in those or in you. What it did have to do with was breaking her stride, having her lose the momentum she gained with her oh-so-spellbinding weaving of that tale, making it incumbent upon her to regain every bit of conquered ground by starting out with a fresh trip down memory lane, if that is where she insists on going."

Illya studied his friend's dark eyes for a long moment. Then he sighed in agreement with the still personally distasteful strategy and accepted the glass from Napoleon's hand.

"I did so want to hang her up by her toenails," Illya came clean. Then he slammed back the drink, letting the fire of the vodka splash down his throat in one long swallow.

A little smirk lifted just the corners of Solo's mouth. "I was only too aware of that, tovarisch," conceded Napoleon as he perched on his desk near to the chair where Illya sat.

He let his brown eyes sweep again over the countenance of his definitely rattled (even if such was well concealed to less familiar eyes) friend. "She really got to you, didn't she?" Solo broached with genuine concern.

Kuryakin gazed levelly at his friend, capturing and holding those brown eyes with his own blue. "And she did not get to you?" he shrewdly inquired.

Napoleon shifted his body a bit uncomfortably and then resettled himself by crossing one leg over the other. "Touché," he acknowledged his partner's dead-on hit.

Illya's eyes took on a faraway haze as he remarked flatly, "I so remember that little ghoul."

"Illya," Napoleon shook his head slowly. "She was five years old."

Illya shrugged. "Thrush bled her young," he countered grimly. Then he extended his glass back toward Napoleon, wordlessly asking for a refill on the vodka. The interrogation session, much as he was loath to admit it, had indeed been unnerving.

Solo accepted the glass from his partner's hand, rose from his perch on the desk, and crossed back to the bar. In the wordless vacuum that ensued as he went about the business of fixing his friend another drink, Napoleon's mind wandered backwards. He had his own memories of "that little ghoul"...

_When he first saw her standing outside the door that likely would grant access into the heart of the Thrush medical complex, he couldn't be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. She looked like a ghost: so pale, so white, eyes with a pinkish glow that could have come straight from Hades… or a Thrush chemical vial. God, were they using kids as lab rats now? "Little girl," he softly called to her, trying to ascertain her reality. She smiled, then pulled open and ran straight through the door into the lab. Well, if she could get in that easily, so could he._

_He followed through that now wide-open entrance just as a hidden Thrush sniper shot at him, striking successfully home with some kind of dart. It hit him high in the left thigh. A trap. He should have realized it from the start. He felt disoriented, dizzy as he fired several blind shots from his Special in the general direction of the sniper's assault. He pulled the offending barb from his flesh, but knew instinctively it had penetrated deep enough to do its full work. His vision was blurring and misting. And then the child was there again, beckoning before she set off at another sprint. "Honey," he shouted as he chased after her, knowing it a likely foolish move. But she was just a kid and in more danger than she could possibly comprehend._

_"Get out of here! It's not safe!" He followed blindly, his head spinning wildly now and his feet losing coordination, as she careened around corners and down corridors within the building. Every time he was sure he had lost her, she would reappear and beckon, and the chase would begin anew. "Honey, please listen to me! There are terrible people here! Get out! Run away!" His tongue was too large in his mouth and his words slurred, but he had to make her understand. He finally managed to catch her, or so he thought, as he entered an inner portal through which she had vanished._

_Another dart hit him, right in neck this time. And then a third pierced the elbow of his right arm, causing his gun to drop from his hand. His legs turned to jelly and his fingers lacked the dexterity to retrieve his Special. He was on his knees, panting as his lungs gasped for the needed oxygen that seemed to elude them, and the child was standing before him, pink eyes large and very round._

_"Pappa kommer," she assured him in Norwegian. "Papa?" he questioned through lips that could barely form coherent words any longer. His body started convulsing wildly and colors blossomed like fireworks all around him. "Ikke vær redd, du er trygg hos pappa. Du kan hvile nå." He felt hands on him, dragging him, pulling him up onto a gurney, using a surgical blade to cut away his clothes, strapping him down. The world turned all lopsided and cartoon bright, sensations of cold and heat became throbbing aches in and of themselves, sounds magnified until everything thundered around him, and then he couldn't any longer focus on anything at all...  
{_Translation: Papa is coming... Do not worry, you'll be safe with Papa. You can rest now.}

"Napoleon?"

His friend's questioning voice summoned Solo back from the precipice of his reveries.

"So where do we start to unravel this, Illya?" he queried somewhat shakily as he returned to the other man with the fresh drink in hand.

"I hear at the very beginning is the very best place to start," Illya playfully paraphrased the words of an old Broadway show tune, thus relieving much of the anxiety in the room.

Napoleon grinned broadly at his friend's silly joke related in that wry, distinctly Kuryakinesque manner.

"I've heard that too," Solo joined in the easy moment as he handed off the refilled vodka tumbler to Illya. "And to that end I've been reviewing the official report from that old affair."

Napoleon spun the revolving desk around so that the computer monitor, with its formulaic display of text set under the bolded title "The Specimen Pool Affair -- July 1966", rested in front of Kuryakin's current chair.

Illya stared down at the uncompromising words on the screen as he noted, "Even the name is the stuff of nightmares."

"You can read there my notation that, what little she spoke to me, the albino child spoke in Norwegian," Napoleon made his first sally into unsealing the tape on this particular closed case.

Illya nodded. "While most of what she spoke to me was in English. Very precise English. Studied."

"Learned by rote," Napoleon summarized. "She said that exact thing today during the interrogation, that it was knowledge she had painstakingly learned by rote." Solo then inquired pointedly of his friend, "What did she say in Norwegian to you exactly?"

"Only the phrase 'den mørkhårede mannen med de varme, brune øynene', the dark-haired man with the warm brown eyes, and the insistence that you were 'resting'," recalled Illya without needing to refresh his memory from the file before him on the monitor. "And then later in the observers' gallery, she asked if the bonds of the chair in which I was strapped hurt."

"So, if it was from script, she spoke in English. Off the script, she reverted to her native Norwegian," Napoleon spoke out the logical conclusion as he idly tapped his fingers against his lips.

"We realized back then she had been purposely used as bait to lure us where Thrush wanted us to be," Illya reminded his partner. "So no surprise about the scripting."

"No, no surprise," agreed Napoleon, "but it doesn't hurt to be thorough when laying this all out again." Solo raised one index finger as if attempting to pinpoint the facts. "Bait provided with a script of only actions for me, but of both words and actions for you. Yet in the end she was the one who loosened the straps on the chair for you."

"I had been pulling against the bonds and the blood on my wrists disturbed her," Illya expounded.

"Though she willingly watched from the gallery all the blood being let in the operating theatre without so much as a queasy look, right?" probed Napoleon.

"Without so much as the extra blink of an eye," Kuryakin stated matter-of-factly. "But the blood in that operating room was under the control of 'Papa'."

"Hmmm, yes," Solo ruminated thoughtfully as his mind connected the dots to what the child had said to him in Norwegian by way of reassurance. "And Papa made it safe," he paraphrased what he recalled.

After a few moments, Solo punched his intercom open to his secretary and summarily ordered, "Jenny, have Section IV pull together every scrap of information available on deceased Thrush scientist Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl. And I mean everything, even mentions in newspaper society pages or gossip columns. Have them check as well if there are any specifics about his daughter, name of Delphina. I want it all transferred to my secure computer reference library before the end of the day."

"Right away, Mr. Solo," Jenny responded with all her usual efficiency.

Napoleon closed off the intercom connection as he ventured, "Do you think her performance today was scripted?"

"Certainly not by Papa," Illya declared, perhaps too readily.

"But perhaps still by Thrush," Napoleon contemplated.

"And perhaps any such script included the scene last night in your office," Kuryakin continued the train of thought.

"Possibly," Solo considered all they knew thus far. Exasperatingly, it was much too little. "I wonder exactly what kind of technology Ms. Reikedahl is the residual of," he put the most precarious speculation into words.

"I shudder to think," commented Illya. "But Napoleon," he forwarded warily, "her eyes…"

Napoleon uneasily shifted his shoulders.

"Yeah, her eyes…" he repeated the ominous words of his Russian partner. "My eyes," he verbally articulated what they both were thinking.

"She's going to have to be interrogated again," the Russian advised his American friend in no uncertain terms, though he was somewhat uncertain Napoleon would agree to let him finish the interrogation himself.

"Think you're up to that, Illya?" Napoleon asked after a heartbeat of speculative silence had ensued.

A little half-smile crept up the corners of Kuryakin's mouth as he registered Solo's assent to letting him continue as interrogator in this case, assent that reaffirmed the other man's sustained trust in him.

"Forewarned is forearmed," Illya willingly accepted the challenge.

* * *

"He'll be as suspicious of you as a canary of a cat if you engage him in conversation like that, greenstick," Jack Valdar criticized Natasha Kuryakin after having watched and listened to her during this latest improvisation session. "Yunusov can be a talkative little bastard, if you don't get his hackles up. His loose tongue could drop a ton of valuable information right into our listening ears. But we have to be vigilant about keeping on the good side of his chaotic nature."

Natasha was tired and cranky, as were the other four members, one other woman and three more men, of the Russian Arms Affair final strike team. They had been simulating these informal chat approach strategies for hours, and at this precise moment she just didn't want to think any more about how to sidle up to Yunusov. She wanted a hot meal and an equally hot bath, and perhaps a round of hot sex with her current boyfriend of six months. Like as not this last thought lay behind her next flippant outburst.

"Why don't I just seduce the bastard and get on his good side the quick way?" she quipped sarcastically.

Her careless comment opened her right up for Jack's next round of disapproval.

"Haven't you read any of the files on the man, greenstick?" Valdar demanded with icy sangfroid. "His sexual inclinations do not run toward females."

Damn Jack Valdar to hell! She wasn't incompetent! She had read the files! She just was completely at her wits' end and had thus foolishly given into the temptation to verbally push back against his outspoken criticism. Didn't he understand natural frustration? Superior or not, she had just about had it with his inflexible and heavy-handed training tactics. And as well his continual referral to herself as "greenstick" was adding exponentially to her irritation.

"So why don't **you **just seduce him then?" Natasha threw back at the CEA about as graciously as a spitting cat.

The room went eerily quiet. The other female agent in the group, named Laura Beckstein, caught Natasha's eye and mouthed silently, "Backup plan," making the younger woman wish she could somehow sink right through the floor. Yes, of course something like that was the logical backup plan. She had studied all the files and knew the slightly built Yunusov's preference in lovers ran to men with bodybuilder-type physiques, and that made Valdar an obvious choice for any such snare should it be deemed the best means of instigation into the Russian's confidence. Where the heck was her head? She was behaving like a petulant child inclined to all the sensitivity of an unspeakably spoiled brat. She was better than this, possessed of not only better agent skills but also more empathetic gifts as a human being. Yet somehow Jack only brought out the worst in her and turned her into the epitome of the callow 'greenstick' his constant address insisted she was.

"Don't concern yourself with my part in this operation," Valdar broke through the awkward silence, each and every syllable of his decree fired like a bullet in Natasha's direction. "Concern yourself with yours. I will admit your aptitude with arms makes you ideal for the role of independent assessor sent to make a full report to Thrush on the specifics of the weapons shipment. But in every other aspect of this mission, greenstick, you seem far too willing to take chances and not plan ahead."

Pedro Arquas, another male of the team, tried to abate the brewing storm by interjecting easily, "Cut her a break, Jack. It's been a long day. We're none of us at peak performance at the moment."

"Cutting her a break might mean she dies," Jack made his blanket determination. "Or you die, or Laura, or either or both of our deep-cover agents, or any one and perhaps everyone on this team. It means likely failure in our mission, and thus that thousands of innocents perish at some point in the future when Thrush aims these blood-bartered weapons at them. Thus I can't afford to cut her any break whatsoever, and I won't."

"And I'm not asking for any!" retorted Natasha in her turn, her blue eyes as hot as twin flames of some lit combustible gas.

"Good. Then repeat the improvisation scenario again," Jack directed stonily. "Pedro, you stand in for Yunusov this time. And remember, greenstick, endeavor to make…"

"Gabby girlfriend talk," blurted out Natasha with the frigid tones of Siberia in her voice. "I get it."

Jack stared at her, his gray eyes impenetrable and unyielding, his very silence as commanding as any bellowed words and even more meticulously uncompromising.

"Partner indeed," Natasha indignantly huffed under her breath as the team uneasily resumed the exercise.

Some two hours later as the members of the team were gathering up coats and other personal paraphernalia in preparation for heading to their various homes, Natasha found her mind returning to her earlier verbal gaffe. Had she unwittingly insulted Jack? She wasn't sure, but she didn't want to have put herself in an even worst position in her new and difficult partner's regard. Accordingly she sought out Laura Beckstein in an attempt to ascertain if an apology in a particular vein might be in order so to keep her relationship with Jack at least within the boundaries of the bearable for them both.

"Is he comfortable with that backup plan?" Natasha insinuated the question in a quiet aside.

"Jack?" Laura, a woman in her mid-thirties with an impressive array of both field missions and field successes emphasizing her top-notch skills as a security system detection/deactivation expert, was for a moment nonplussed. Then she shrugged. "Jack tenaciously guards his privacy, but I rather doubt what you're implying simply because he is very much a conservative traditionalist."

Natasha considered that answer for a long moment and then decided to dive headlong into deep waters.

"Would he be able to pull it off then? I mean, if push came to shove and the backup plan was the best alternative, could he really do it? He is just so rigid a personality," Natasha qualified her query, "I can't see him bending against his own natural inclinations."

Laura smirked and leisurely scratched one eyebrow to cover that reaction.

"Natasha, I can absolutely fill you in on one very pertinent certainty about Jack Valdar," confided Laura matter-of-factly. "He, plain and simple, does not permit himself to fail. So you should never doubt his ability to pull off anything required by his job, whether against his 'personal inclinations' or anything else. Watch him closely as he works; his technique is well worth the scrutiny.

"Now," the older woman finalized the summary, "as to whether any mission tasks ever cause him in private to hit the bottle, or sweat through nightmares, or vomit like someone in the midst of a bad bout of food poisoning, I don't have a clue. And the truly significant point is, neither does anyone else, including Thrush."

Now it was Natasha who smirked as she challenged, "Are you implying he has no faults?"

Laura laughed lightly.

"As a human being," Beckstein forwarded, "he surely has plenty. But as a field agent, none I've ever noticed. He's an enigma Thrush would dearly love to solve, but even U.N.C.L.E. itself hasn't yet managed that gordian feat.

"I'm not sure I envy you the personal headaches that go along with being assigned as his partner," divulged Laura bluntly. "Yet strictly from a business angle, you've got the very best guarding your back, greenstick," she let Jack's nickname for the younger woman escape her lips, though she gave Natasha a quick wink that verified she meant the moniker in nothing but good humor.

Natasha carefully considered Laura's assessment of Valdar before she murmured yet again under her breath, "Partner indeed." Though the tenor of that quiet remark, even though still underscored by exasperation, was now more speculative than indignant.

* * *

"_Gjør det vondt?" a child's voice broke through his emotional torment as he sat, bound and gagged, watching his partner being sliced open in the operating theatre below this observers' gallery.  
_{Translation: Does it hurt?}

_He turned his eyes to the little albino girl standing beside his chair as she fingered the blood staining his wrist where he had struggled, kept struggling, to free himself from the tight leather strap._

"_Gjør det vondt?" she repeated._

"_Yes, it hurts," he thought angrily in answer to her question, the gag in his mouth preventing him from actually saying anything. "All of this hurts," his mental discourse played out._

_Something in his eyes must have given her the answer she sought for incredibly she began loosening that strap on his right wrist._

_He glanced warily at the guards behind him, but they weren't paying any attention. Instead they were bantering with the Thrush Central mucky-muck concerning what particular organ of his partner's should be permanently removed. Their crude vulgarity left him certain they were paying the child in that gallery no heed whatsoever. She was part of the furniture to them, and he did not believe any of the others there could speak or understand the girl's native language. Why should they? This wasn't Norway; this was the United States, Connecticut to be exact, and the Norwegian scientist and his daughter were just imported commodities for Thrush's activities here._

_He watched the girl's small fingers as she undid the strap a bit clumsily. This was going to be tricky. His Special and communicator had been confiscated of course, but he did have a homing device in the buckle of his boot that had been overlooked in the quick search the Thrush goons had done on him before strapping him into this chair. If he could manage to get it activated and if he then could likewise manage to get a rifle from one of the thugs; he might be able to make some kind of stand until U.N.C.L.E. reinforcements arrived to attack the lab complex._

_He struck just as the child had completely unfastened the strap, robbing her of the opportunity to reaffix it more loosely. He pulled his wrist free and used the momentum of punching the flat of that hand against the backrest, as well as pushing with the full weight of his body, to knock the heavy chair backwards into the two guards. One of the rifles expelled an automatic round that sprayed the room, hitting the Thrush Central man several times square in the chest (surely a bit of Solo luck extended vicariously to him in that moment), as both guards were hammered to the floor. The one whose rifle had discharged was knocked completely unconscious. The other guard's rifle skittered across the floor to the opposite side of the room. The former captive's free hand closed upon the throat of this guard, squeezing and squeezing. The Thrush's face turned red-purple as he pulled frantically at the hand closing over his throat, but the assailant refused to loosen his grip. The guard's face went bluish as he fought for breath and finally sank into unconsciousness as well._

_He quickly undid the strap on his right ankle, activating the homing beacon in the buckle of his boot even before releasing the straps on his other wrist and ankle, as well as the one secured across his chest. Lastly he tore the gag from his mouth. He grabbed the first guard's abandoned rifle from where it lay very close to the unconscious form, pulled himself completely free from the upended chair, and then without a moment of hesitation whacked each of the guards savagely in the head with the butt of the weapon, sending streams of blood cascading down their faces. There was no time for niceties. If they awakened, it would be too simple for them to overpower him, and he knew he likely didn't have much time before the inevitable Thrush backup muscle made an entrance and likely made quick work of dispatching the helpless Napoleon._

_Below in the theatre the doctor and his several surgical assistants were obviously in shock at the sudden turn in events. He knew he had to stop them from doing anything to alert the complex of his attack, as well as from simply killing off Napoleon with a scalpel or an injection of some deadly drug. Standing almost exactly where she had before was the little albino girl. He grabbed the child easily in one arm and lifted her off the floor, pointedly showing his prize to those in the theatre, particularly to one man in that theatre._

"_Do anything stupid and she dies," he announced in a deadly tone, though whether in honesty he could ever kill a child in cold blood, he had no clue. But there wasn't time to think about ethics now. His partner was bleeding out on the operating gurney below him, and this child was the only insurance he had to guarantee his friend's life._

"_Remain still!" Reikedahl ordered his three assistants._

_None of the surgical team had guns on their persons. They weren't muscle; they were scientific personnel. Thus they were at a disadvantage here and the doctor was wise enough to realize that._

"_I have a way to provide us security from trigger-happy intrusion, Mr. Kuryakin," Reikedahl bartered. "Can we come to an agreement?"_

"_That depends," he responded warily. "What is the way?"_

"_I can put the operating theatre and observers' gallery under quarantine shutdown," came the doctor's proposition as he indicated with his head a lever on one wall of the operating theatre stuck beneath a yellow sign clearly labeled 'Quarantine Lockout' in large black letters._

"_Do it!" he commanded in a harsh voice he barely recognized as his own as he pressed the rifle close to the side of the little girl he yet held in his other arm._

"_Doctor, you can't be serious!" exclaimed a male surgical assistant as he rushed forward toward Reikedahl. Reikedahl simply reached out with the scalpel he yet held in one hand and stuck it unhesitantly into the man's gut. The assistant slid lifelessly to the floor at the scientist's feet._

"_I am deadly serious," Reikedahl spoke in warning to the remaining two surgical assistants. Then the scientist moved off to the lockout lever and pulled it steadily downward. The sound of doors automatically sealing within the immediate corridor was accompanied by the wail of sirens signaling a biohazard alert through the remainder of the complex._

_He glanced down at the gurney on which his partner lay still bleeding profusely from the open incision of the otherwise completed appendectomy. "Stitch up my partner," he demanded of Reikedahl._

"_Ah, for that we will need to make another bargain," Reikedahl pushed his own position._

"_I'm warning you," he bluffed, for surely he had no intention of killing this child (did he?), as he roughly shook the little girl held within the curve of his arm._

"_Let me further demonstrate my good faith, Mr. Kuryakin," Reikedahl put up a hand. Then the scientist went to a tray on the surgical table and selected a syringe from its surface. He took the syringe over to where his two remaining assistants stood cowering. "Lie down," he told them. "This will only make you immobile for a time," he assured them. "You'll recover in full health." The techs, looking very uncomfortable, nodded their acquiescence. They had been the ones to fill that syringe earlier for use in Solo's IV 'in case' and knew the dose it contained wasn't enough to kill, at least not them since they didn't have any of the paralysis drug already in their systems. The addition of it to Solo's already saturated system though would definitely have killed him; thus the 'in case' designation. They voluntarily lay down on the floor and Reikedahl emptied half of the syringe in the arm of each. Then the scientist got to his feet and looked back up at Illya, where he stood in the observers' gallery, and held up the empty needle. "There, you see," the doctor remarked easily. "Now it is only you and I and our bargaining chips, my daughter and your Mr. Solo. So let us negotiate like gentlemen, face to face."_

_He snickered, but Reikedahl only continued, "My daughter can show you the hidden stairs from the gallery to this theatre. And I am quite aware you have her under your control even as you are aware I have Mr. Solo under mine. We meet on an even playing field."_

_He nodded shortly, keenly aware of the blood running out of Napoleon's body on that operating gurney. He needed to keep his partner alive or having the assault team arrive to take out this lab would prove a very hollow victory to him indeed._

_"Bring mannen til meg__, Delphie," Reikedahl subsequently instructed his daughter. She nodded and then turned her face up to her captor, wordlessly asking to be set down. He stood her back on her feet and she, still wordlessly, took his hand and led him toward the back wall of the gallery. There she pressed something, he never saw what, and the wall slid open to reveal a narrow spiral staircase. Just before the two of them began to descend the stairs, a voice spoke from behind them.  
_{Translation: Bring the man to me, Delphie.}

"_You are the devil, Kuryakin," the man from Thrush Central wheezed out, blood spurting from his mouth and all but choking off his words, "but one day Central will find a way to give you your due, never fear."_

_He made no gesture to indicate he had heard the man's threat, simply followed the little girl down the winding staircase into the operating theatre._

_Once they stood face-to-face, Reikedahl put forth bluntly, "You have somehow managed to notify U.N.C.L.E. of this location, yes?" His silence again seemed all the answer required of him by a Reikedahl. "In the intervening meanwhile before your cohorts arrive," went on the scientist, "you want me to sew up Mr. Solo all neat and tidy, and I want my daughter's freedom."_

"_What makes you think she wouldn't be better off in the custody of U.N.C.L.E.?" he insinuated._

"_I don't want her in the custody of U.N.C.L.E.; I want her free," persisted Reikedahl. "And I want her free to take that," he indicated with his head the small refrigeration unit packed neatly with the glass slides, vials and jars holding the 'samples' taken during the medical procedures performed during the past hours on Napoleon._

"_No," he negated in a hard tone, ominously brandishing the Thrush rifle in his hand._

"_Come now, Mr. Kuryakin," inveigled Reikedahl, "Mr. Solo is slowly dying on this table, and your cavalry might not get here in time to save him. As soon as that last unit of blood," the doctor emphasized by pointing to the more than half-drained plastic bag hanging on the medical stand and connected by IV into Napoleon, "which is replacing what he is losing, is depleted, he doesn't stand a chance. Not to mention whatever infection might be incubating in that open incision even as we speak, since this operating room is now far from properly sterile."_

_Reikedahl was right. He had come into this room without so much as a surgical mask and so had the little girl, bringing with them untold germs that had ever more chance to fester in Napoleon's wound the longer it remained open. How foolish of him not to recognize sooner that asking him to deal face-to-face had been but a means for Reikedahl to gain an extra bit of leverage in this negotiation._

"_How can she get out without alerting the whole complex to the falsehood of the quarantine?" he asked suspiciously._

_"Vis ham sjakten__, Delphie," Reikedahl directed his daughter. Obediently the little girl went over to a portion of the wall in the operating room and pushed a button that opened into a small horizontal though slightly downward-pitched chute. "We send specimens out to an isolation area that way. Delphie is small enough to ride the pneumatic railway transport along with the cooler. That is how she can get out."  
_{Translation: Show him the chute, Delphie.}

_He hesitated, but then considered the fact that, once the U.N.C.L.E. assault team got into this complex, they should be able to find that isolation area and the telltale cooler quickly enough._

"_All right, send her out with it," he conceded reluctantly._

"_A gracious bargain, Mr. Kuryakin," allowed Reikedahl as he lifted the cooler and set it on the rails within the channel._

_Just then Napoleon's eyes shot open. The state of blessed unconsciousness had fled from him, leaving behind the fullness of the pain and the reality of the paralysis. How the little girl had registered this fact, he couldn't say. He only knew she was beside the gurney in an instant, her hand touching his partner's as she softly said, "Pappa vil gjøre alt bedre."_

_Papa will make it all better? Even as young as she was, how could she not understand that it was "Papa" who had caused Napoleon so much hurt?_

_And then she turned to him and stared at him defiantly, her pink eyes holding his blue. "Du vil aldri gjøre meg redd," she uttered certainly. "You will never make me afraid," he mentally translated as she scurried back to the chute and crawled up behind the cooler on the rails, Reikedahl shutting the door after her and activating the moving transport to send her and her 'treasure chest' somewhere into the bowels of the complex…_

Illya awoke with a physical and vocal start. Beside him in bed Trice stirred. "Darling?" she questioned in a half-dazed tone. "It's nothing," he assured her. "Go back to sleep. I'm just going to get a cup of tea."

"Remember to shut the kettle off when you're done," his wife admonished before settling back into slumber.

Illya pushed his feet into his slippers and wrapped a robe over his pajamas, belting it securely. It was winter and the house was rather cold at night, since neither he nor Trice had been raised in the American mode of overheating a building, especially not when one slept.

He wandered down into the kitchen of the brownstone and plugged in the electric tea kettle. He set about spooning loose tea leaves from a canister into a metal infuser that he then placed in a china teapot he had removed from an open shelf nearby. He took a cup from a cupboard and the cherry jam from the refrigerator. He spooned a heaping helping of the jam into the cup, leaving the spoon in it as well in readiness to stir the sweet stuff into the tea once it was brewed.

Finally he sat at the kitchen table, waiting for the water to boil in the kettle and for the images boiling in his brain to subside back into cool memory.

He hadn't had a single nightmare in years, not that he had ever had them all that frequently at any time in his life. But sometimes harrowing bits from old missions would haunt his sleeping moments. Still, tonight it had been more than bits. It had been like reliving it all again. And that mission was something he definitely did not want to relive.

To this day he couldn't say for certain if he would have killed that little girl if her father hadn't chosen to trade her life for Napoleon's. To this day he couldn't say why he had purposely excluded her final words to him spoken in Norwegian -- You will never make me afraid -- in the written report he had submitted on the affair. And to this day he could never forgive himself for letting Reikedahl talk him into permitting the child to take with her on her escape those specimens gleaned from Napoleon's body. For the U.N.C.L.E. assault force had never found either the cooler or the little girl, and Reikedahl, though taken into custody, had been sprung free by Thrush not more than a month later to be safely ensconced in some other lab to continue whatever work he had started in that complex in rural Connecticut.

"You are the devil, Kuryakin," the man from Thrush Central had in his dying moments taunted, "but one day Central will find a way to give you your due, never fear." And maybe, just maybe, they had after all.

The kettle whistled insistently and Illya set about making and then drinking his tea, hoping to somehow ease his mind fully back into the surety of the present. That present where he was no longer a dedicated enforcement agent in the prime of life and purpose, but rather a world-weary man in his seventies attempting to grow old with some semblance of grace.

* * *

"_Scream!" he tried to get his mind to force his body into action. "Dammit, Solo, can't you even do that?"_

_But it was useless. His body would not obey him: not his throat nor any other part of him. He had wakened from the blackness of unconsciousness back into the agony of unremitting pain and he could do nothing, not even cause discomfort to the ears of his tormentors with shrieks announcing the depth of his physical suffering._

_He felt a small warmth on his hand and then a child's voice said something in a foreign language. "Pappa vil gjøre alt bedre" But his dazed mind was too alive with the reality of excruciating pain his senses were shocking through him to even attempt to translate the words. They didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the constant stabs and aches and throbbings assaulting him. He had borne torture before, and knew he'd always borne it well too, no matter how conceited that personal view might be accounted. Yet somehow this was different, perhaps because he could not move at all, nor even taunt with words. And words had always been so much his weapons. More than anything else, they sustained him in times of trial. Yet now he could do nothing but attempt to endure in total silence and thus complete isolation the fullness of his physical anguish.  
_{Translation: Papa will make it all better.}

_And then the child's voice was saying something else in that foreign tongue to someone else in the room. But what she said and to whom she said it didn't register with him. The next thing his mind could comprehend was a familiar voice, though it currently sounded rather strained and definitely angry._

"_Give him something for the pain," that accented male voice was commanding._

"_Too late for that," another male voice with an entirely different accent responded. "No time to wait for it to take effect. Mr. Solo will just have to endure on his own reserves a bit longer. I have always heard U.N.C.L.E. agents are remarkably stoic when it comes to putting up with physical distress, so it shouldn't prove a problem for their top agent, should it?"_

_A hand reached out to press warm fingers against his and he was at last able to at least focus his vision on the owner of that hand._

"_Hang on, Napoleon," Illya bolstered him surely. "Help is on the way. Just a little longer."_

_And though he couldn't squeeze those fingers pressing his, he found himself relaxing into the surety of his partner's presence. Letting the pervasive pain drift over him in waves that he now counted off calmly in his head as they rhythmically crested and receded even as something pulled steadily at his abdomen._

"_There. Basted up pretty as a prize turkey on Thanksgiving morning," the other voice announced somewhat flippantly, "to interject an entirely American bit of imagery."_

"_Shut up, doctor," Illya advised the other man in a dangerous tone. "Remember I'm still holding the gun."_

_And then to his ears came sounds he was only much later to realize were the whirr of helicopter blades as they landed outside. Following hard upon came gunfire and shouting as an U.N.C.L.E. assault force fought its way into the Thrush lab complex. Finally a team of agents in biohazard gear used a magnesium incendiary to blast the lock from the door of the operating theatre and entered en masse._

"_Jesus Christ!" exclaimed one of the agents at the sight of him strapped down to that operating gurney, bloody sheets offering stark evidence of something less than salubrious having been done to him._

"_Get a medical evac team in here," instructed Illya in a clipped tone. "The quarantine was a ruse; there is no biohazard. But Mr. Solo needs medical attention immediately."_

"_Nonsense," broached the other man, the one Illya had addressed as 'doctor'. "No one has ever impugned my medical technique."_

"_And get him out of here," Illya announced in an icy tone in reference to the Thrush scientist, "before I personally tear him limb from limb and save U.N.C.L.E. the expense of incarcerating him."_

_Everywhere there was flurried activity. Yet he was only vaguely aware of any of it as he was wheeled quickly outside by U.N.C.L.E. medical personnel, and finally lifted into a medical helicopter, Illya sliding in beside his gurney at the last moment before take-off._

"_The complex is secured, Napoleon," Illya advised the CEA matter-of-factly._

_But his friend must have read the panic in his eyes, the panic caused by the fact he still couldn't move a muscle, hadn't been able to do so for hours upon hours. Was this paralysis permanent?_

"_We will have you wiggling your toes again, and waggling your eyebrows at all the ladies as well, in no time," Illya sought to calm his fears as the Russian spoke the acerbic reassurance with one of his teasing half-smirks._

_He had no way to know that his friend was far from sure of that at this precise moment, but he himself was completely sure of his friend. So he trusted unconditionally in Illya's spoken comfort and let his restless mind still into quiet as he was injected with some kind of pain medication. Yet as he drifted close to sleep he heard Illya say something that made absolutely no sense to him at that moment._

"_And we will get back that bunch of cracker-jack prizes the good doctor stole out of you too…"_

Napoleon awoke with a physical and vocal start. He attempted to slowly regulate his breathing back to normalcy as his eyes focused on the familiar surroundings of his penthouse bedroom.

A nightmare, just a nightmare. Nothing to get panicky about. The nightmare was part of the past, and he was safe and sound in the present.

Rising from his bed, Solo shrugged on his robe, leaving it to hang open unbelted, and thrust his feet into the slippers that rested on the floor nearby. He padded into his living room and for a moment or two considered moving on to the kitchen and brewing a pot of coffee. Then he decided against it; coffee would only keep him awake. Instead he moved to the bar in the living room and poured a measure of good brandy into a crystal snifter.

He settled himself into an easy chair and sipped slowly at the fiery liquor. It warmed his insides in the chill of the winter night. And in the after-chill of the nightmare as well.

He suffered nightmares stemming from the trauma of old missions now and again. But truthfully not very often. He usually had a way of tucking bad things beyond even the reach of his subconscious. Yet tonight that facility had failed him utterly with the result this nightmare had been more detailed than any he had ever experienced.

What had so disturbed him about that affair at the time and what still disturbed him about it now was how… vulnerable he had felt. Customary forms of torture frayed his weapons of wit and charm, yet always left them undeniably intact, a secret means of endurance that buoyed his spirit even in the worse of situations. This time, however, those weapons had been effectively stolen from him along with the control of his body. Hell, he hadn't even been able to scream. And if he had come up in his head with a dozen perfectly brilliant plans to effect his escape, none of them would have mattered so much as a speck of dust floating in the breeze since he hadn't been able to force even a pinky to move a mere quarter inch.

He had been helpless as an infant, and in his own helplessness somehow he had felt a… What could he call it? Empathy he guessed was the best way to describe it. Yes, he had felt an empathy with the strange little albino girl, she who obeyed without question because she didn't yet understand what the questions should be. Vulnerable in the extreme just as he had been.

He knew Illya did not feel that way. That for some reason Illya felt, as he had stated shortly after the affair to Napoleon, that the child was centered with a core of steel. "Whether it was just natural to her," Illya had expounded, "or something Thrush instilled in her, I can't say. But I can say it existed in the child with whom I interacted."

Napoleon sighed as he allowed another swallow of the brandy to ease down his throat and send its pleasant burn into his stomach, lulling him away from old memories and into current realities. For the child, with or without that core of steel, was now a woman and she had instigated herself back into their lives. Whether for good or ill, Solo could not be certain. But the empathy he had felt for the child had come back to him for the woman. He couldn't explain why even to himself. He just felt it; that plain and that simple. Nothing intellectual about it; just something rising from the always tangled mass of human emotions.

The last remark Solo recalled Illya speaking on the medical copter before he himself had passed into the oblivion of drug-induced sleep came back to him with a vengeance.

"And we will get back that bunch of cracker-jack prizes the good doctor stole out of you too."

Illya had said something similar today during the interrogation session, hadn't he? Yes, something about Reikedahl being "a madman who thought he could pilfer through a human body as if seeking for a prize in a cracker-jack box".

"And I am the cracker-jack box," decreed Solo in a quiet voice.

Instinctively Napoleon shivered. The reaction had nothing at all to do with any environmental chill inherent in the current December night, though it did undoubtedly have much to do with the mental chill inherent in another night long past.

* * *

**Act IV: Perhaps…**

Illya Kuryakin looked up from the electron microscope into which he had been peering.

"Final check for lucisorqe in coating of light manipulation suit:" he spoke aloud so the audio monitor in his lab would record his vocal analysis, "positive."

So there it was: the ultimate basis for the astounding properties of the suit. Lucisorqe was a new mineral compound, its form very mercurial and its existence decidedly rare. The coating on the suit used it in a chemical cocktail, and under those conditions it had been very difficult to detect. The crystalline structure of the liquid-like mineral had been documented for only a short period of time, and access to the mineral itself was so scarce that few scientists were able to immediately identify that structure. Illya had needed to consult with experts on the subject before allowing this final determination of lucisorqe as an integral part of the suit coating to pass into the record as firm and absolute.

"Mr. Solo should be very pleased to have this finally verified," stated one of the lab technicians who had been working with Illya this day.

"Perhaps," Kuryakin demurred in his best 'don't assume anything' voice, causing the tech to lose his small smile of research triumph.

Truth be told, Illya really did have no idea how Napoleon would react to this bit of news. His friend had seemed off the past couple of days, not himself. And all of the uncharacteristic behavior seemed to center on the Reikedahl woman.

Just this morning Illya had been blindsided when Napoleon's secretary had asked what he thought about the picture Section IV had added into Solo's computer reference library materials on the Reikedahls, both father and daughter. He hadn't known about any such picture. Napoleon hadn't told him about it and certainly hadn't shown it to him. Illya had pretended to know all about it of course, and had thus gotten Jenny to print him out a copy "for research purposes".

It had been from a newspaper clipping, a society page. It showed Niles Ospreye, that Thrush council member who presented himself to the public as a philanthropist for scientific research causes, with his arm possessively draped about the waist of a woman who was listed as being his "unidentified date". Though the angle was bad and the photo had been taken from a good range off, there was no doubt in Illya's mind the woman in that picture was none other than Delphina Reikedahl.

Illya immediately confronted Napoleon about that photo, slamming his wheedled copy on the revolving desk and spinning it quickly in front of Solo.

"It doesn't prove anything," was his friend's response.

"It proves she has intimate dealings with Thrush Central," retorted Illya with more than a bit of exasperation at Napoleon's attitude. "That she's not the ignored bit of leftover technology she tried to make us believe."

Solo remained silent.

"Napoleon," queried Illya in a tight-lipped tone, "what is going on with you? Ospreye is one of the most powerful members on the Thrush Council. We've been trying to bring him down for years. You don't think that him sending his erstwhile date," Illya settled for the polite term, "right into U.N.C.L.E. headquarters might not be part of some well-laid plot? Come on, my friend; start thinking straight about all this."

"What proves he sent her?" was Napoleon's only counter.

"What proves he didn't?" countered Illya in turn.

"You're basing your assumptions on one questionable photo taken five years ago that Section IV came across by happenstance," Napoleon furthered his own viewpoint.

"Happenstance?" Illya all but croaked out the word. "Will you listen to yourself, Napoleon? I don't know what is going on in your head, but whatever it is I do not much like it."

Solo leaned against the high back of his leather chair, closing his eyes with a weary sigh.

"I just don't think it's that simple," he forwarded in a tired voice.

"Did I say it was simple?" demanded Illya. "Nothing with Thrush is ever simple. Sending this woman, who has such an unpleasant connection with both our pasts, right into the lap of U.N.C.L.E., body conveniently cloaked in an exotic new Thrush device, is far from a basic ruse and does smack suspiciously of a convoluted setup. It is more than a perhaps to surmise that Thrush could conjecture how this all might affect you and be very intent on using those feelings."

Hazel-brown eyes snapped open to stare into ice-blue ones.

"Stop, Illya," warned Napoleon in that slow and soft voice that threatened an underlying blast of fury. "I'm not that vulnerable."

"Sometimes you are, my friend," came Illya's final word on the subject just before he stormed out of the office of the Continental Chief.

Now, as his lab assistants cleaned up the slides and set everything in order for proper recordkeeping, Illya considered his next step.

He was to again interrogate the "Thrush technological residual" in a few hours, and he fully intended to retain the upper hand during this session.

* * *

The century-and-a-half-old brownstone in the Murray Hill district of Manhattan that served as residence to Illya and Trice Kuryakin never ceased to grant Napoleon Solo a feeling of snug coziness and understated refinement whenever he gazed upon its muted golden-beige façade. It had become his second home, a place where he felt equally as comfortable as he did in his own toney Upper East Side digs. In fact, there was an element here his own lodgings couldn't match despite the more chic address, that being a feeling of familial warmth.

Many were the lazy Sunday afternoons or laugh-filled Christmas mornings Napoleon had spent within these familiar walls, especially when Natasha was a youngster. Though Illya had never been and certainly was not now a believer in any religion, Trice, who was very Church of England in spiritual viewpoint, had wheedled him into accepting a typical Episcopalian baptism for his daughter by using as bait the idea of such giving his dearest friend an easily referenced association with Natasha through the position of godfather. That idea had very much appealed to Illya as he had very much wanted for Napoleon to be a recognizable part of his child's life, while to Napoleon it had presented the possibility of a blessing beyond reckoning. And so it had been decided and so it had been done. And so had Solo's relationship with Natasha given him something he never thought to have, since he had no children of his own; that relationship proving both loving and giving, full of mischief and merriment, and bounded by protective care and future hope. It was true to say Natasha simply adored her one and only Dyadya, and that Napoleon absolutely cherished his one and only goddaughter.

Natasha lived on her own now in a trendy loft apartment in the Chelsea district. Yet the brownstone in Murray Hill was still the family gathering spot, and Napoleon was very much part of the family. His acceptance as such was something for which Solo was eternally grateful to Trice. She could have resented his closeness with Illya when she had married the Russian; she could later have been frustrated by Natasha's childhood worship after having permitted him entry into the girl's daily life as godfather. Yet neither negative emotion had ever inserted itself into her dealings with Napoleon. In fact, Trice had always been more than willing to "take him into the bosom of her family", as the saying went.

"Shall we go in, sir?" Ed Lein, Napoleon's bodyguard, asked a bit anxiously. He had returned to Solo's side, after providing the limo driver with his final instructions, somewhat dismayed to find his chief in the middle of the sidewalk, having eschewed the more guarded position near the bulk of the heavily armored car. Ed did not relish the idea of the Number 1 in Section I standing unprotected out in the open on the street in the bright afternoon sunlight. The North American division Head was simply too visible a target under these particular circumstances.

The constant necessity for a bodyguard had come with the territory of promotion into a lead policy position within U.N.C.L.E. Still, as a former Section II operative who had been trained and expected to look after himself, Napoleon absolutely hated that necessity. He had borne the annoyance for twenty-two long years, yet it still chafed at his ego. Though the younger man could be something of a bulldog when it came to his duties, Solo had to admit that Ed Lein was at least someone who he found tolerable of personality. Not so many of the bodyguards that had protected him over the years. And at least private forays like this didn't require the four man team that usually surrounded him during diplomatic missions entered into in the name of U.N.C.L.E.

Nodding shortly, Solo headed up the stairs and pushed the buzzer near the front door of the brownstone. Trice Kuryakin opened the portal from within after but a few short minutes, minutes during which Lein kept his eyes darting everywhere, his hand resting upon his Special in its holster under his partially unbuttoned topcoat, and his body at an angle to shield the older man from any possible stray bullets.

"Napoleon," spoke Trice easily as she leaned in to accept the greeting kiss Solo deposited on her cheek, "this is a pleasant surprise."

She was barefoot as she almost always was when ensconced at home. Despite her upper-crust upbringing, there was much of the bohemian in Trice, an attitude that had not altered despite her sixty years. Wavy auburn hair carelessly pulled back in a scrunchie served to emphasize the telltale golden streak age had shot through her tresses at one particular spot from hairline to the very ends of the strands. Looking slapdashly attractive, as well as far younger than her years, Illya's wife had an open and paint-smudged smock draped over jeans and a pullover, indicating she had more than likely been working in her studio. Trice was quite an accomplished artist and her paintings sold for thousands of dollars in galleries throughout New York.

"I hate to disturb you when you're working, Trice, but might you have a moment to talk with me?" queried Solo a bit uncertainly.

"Always for you, sweeting," Trice assured him with a smile and her own personal form of endearment as she guided Solo in through the door by placing a hand on his arm.

Ed followed close behind, shutting the door decisively after him. Trice threw over her shoulder, knowing well as she did Solo's current bodyguard from Napoleon's previous visits to her home, "Reset the security locks for me, will you, Ed? And then roust up Mrs. Sedowsky," she referenced the Kuryakins' longtime housekeeper. "Have her brew you a cup of fresh coffee and fix you a sandwich too, if you haven't had lunch yet," Trice finalized her instructions to Lein. "Napoleon and I will be in my studio."

Napoleon chuckled softly as Trice, never once breaking her stride, led him by the arm up the several flights of stairs from the main level of the brownstone to her attic studio.

"You always do so effectively cow my bodyguards into obedience," he teased appreciatively.

Trice shrugged, but there was a mischievous twinkle in her hazel-green eyes.

"Comes with the territory of being your partner's wife," she assured him. "All of U.N.C.L.E. knows better than to stand in the draft of a possible Siberian blast emanating from that quarter."

The pair had reached the level of Trice's studio and Napoleon entered the organized chaos of that space with the same awe he always did. Canvases everywhere in various stages of completion; long tables with tubes of oil paint laid out in rows; brushes of every size, shape and texture bunched alongside; diluted turpentine used to clean those brushes sending a sharp tang into the air; easels and palettes; rough cotton cover cloths: everywhere the clutter of creativity. Napoleon was drawn to an enormous canvas on an easel standing very near one of the overly large windows that, along with a huge skylight above, guaranteed Trice plenty of natural light when the day was fine.

"This new?" he questioned absently.

Trice came up to stand beside him.

"Yes," she responded readily. "I call it 'Through Life's Long Corridor'."

Napoleon quietly studied the oil-color before him. Trice always painted in tones of gray, and this work was no exception. Yet somehow looking at her art always brought to mind just how many shades of gray there were in the world. Ones with blue undertones, with green, with brown, with pink, with purple, with yellow, with gold, with orange, with red. There was nothing really monochromatic about her work; no matter that gray was her tint of choice. Somehow she found every nuance that color could offer and used them all perfectly. This particular painting showed the perspective of a long corridor, the forefront images tight and narrow with the background ones fanning outward. The outward cone of the depicted tunnel was lined on both sides with likenesses of mirrors, dozens of them, with those in the forefront being bathed in grays accented beneath with pink and white hues, their surfaces flat and smooth. Each subsequent set of opposing mirrors reflected a different undertone in its gray coloration and a different texture, until the final set showed very wavy images undercast with yellows and golds. Somehow the effect of the inverted perspective of the piece was particularly eye-catching and touched something in Napoleon he couldn't have put into words if he tried.

"Do you like it?" Trice asked softly, staring intently at Solo's strong profile as he took in the picture with rapt admiration.

"Very much," Napoleon answered just as softly.

"It's yours," Illya's wife declared without hesitation.

Napoleon turned a startled face to her. "That's far too generous an offer," he demurred.

"Nonsense," Trice disagreed. "I owe you a birthday gift anyway," she reminded him with a ready wink.

Solo flushed hotly at this casual mention of the disappointment he had caused her by not making an appearance at the birthday party she had so lovingly planned for him. Trice only laughed lightly at his obvious discomfort.

"Sweeting," she took especial care to use her distinctive endearment for him, "Illya told me all about the Thrush agent who showed up in your office and proceeded to hold you at gunpoint. You don't owe me any apologies.

"I admit to being initially hurt by your no-show," Trice continued truthfully. "Yet once the circumstances were made clear, that faded into the mental background as relief you hadn't been harmed pushed into the foreground, I do swear to you. Though it was rather inconvenient your enemies chose to make a statement on that particular night. No social grace has Thrush," she added with another wink.

Solo laughed in honest amusement, relieved Trice's upset was obviously assuaged.

"Thrush operatives have never been known for being creatures of tact," he agreed.

"From the tales Illya has now and again revealed to me," Trice frowned a bit now, "I should say not."

Napoleon's expression sobered once more.

"Has he told you much about all that, Trice?" he now inquired somewhat apprehensively of his partner's wife. With the end of their field careers, neither he nor Illya had ever felt any compunction to share past torments with loved ones. Oh, they both had told Natasha about some of their ordeals when she had decided to pursue a career of her own as an enforcement agent, just so she went forward with that decision without delusions. But regaling others of their close acquaintance with tales of torture and near-death escapes was never a form of mental or emotional catharsis of which either of them had ever availed themselves.

"Not very much," confessed Trice. "Only now and again when he would have nightmares…" Her eyes took on a hazy and aggrieved appearance. "Sometimes then he would tell me, if I asked gently enough."

"Has he had any nightmares the last few nights?" Napoleon asked reluctantly in a very quiet tone.

Now it was Trice's turn to look startled.

"Have you, Napoleon?" she demanded bluntly. "Tell me what all this is about."

Solo fiddled with his tie; then pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing to keep his eyes out of the direct line of Trice's gaze.

"Maybe we better sit," he suggested as he guided Trice by the arm over to a small divan in one corner of the studio.

Once they both were seated, Napoleon struggled to find a way to begin. He cleared his throat more than once. Finally Trice laid a hand over his.

"Please just tell me," she pleaded in no more than a whisper.

And so he did. Told her the whole story as cleanly as he could. Watched her eyes register understanding as they clouded with unshed tears. Glanced helplessly at her hands as they clenched and unclenched in her lap.

"They forced him to watch as they cherry-picked pieces off you to preserve in their personal set of jam-jelly jars," she remarked in a hoarsened voice at the end of his discourse.

"Yes," acknowledged Napoleon, though her comment had not been a question and her unvarnished way of stating the facts made both his throat and stomach tighten.

"And you, Napoleon?" she did query now as she turned her eyes back on his. "What that must have been like," Trice murmured compassionately, her distress evident in every line of her body as she gently took hold of Solo's face in her hands.

"It was a long time ago," Napoleon hedged as he carefully removed her hands with his own, made somewhat self-conscious by the idea that full acceptance of her sympathy might reveal uncharacteristic weakness in him, "and I survived."

"I have heard of those on whom general anesthesia accidentally wore off during surgical procedures," she informed him with a noticeable hitch in her voice as she turned purposely away from him. "Heard how it haunted them for years afterward: the memory of the pain, the inability to move or cry out. Isolated in their own helplessness and agony and terror. And now to hear this done to someone on purpose. This cruelty inflicted as a means of torture…" Trice shook her head slowly, in total disbelief at the extent of inhumanity one being could callously inflict on another. "Thrush is made up of monsters in truth. And this woman to bring it all deliberately back to mind, this pitiless…" She floundered for an adequate description.

Napoleon let out a short breath. That sound called Trice's attention back to his face. She scanned his hazel-brown eyes, amazed at what she saw there.

"You don't see her that way, do you?" she questioned pointedly. "As a pitiless monster, I mean."

_He didn't know how long he had been strapped there on that gurney. He only knew each time he had managed to pull himself beyond the haze of his hallucinations, she had been there. The little girl with the glowing eyes. She never said anything. She would just look at him and sometimes soothingly touch his hand, as if to reassure, though he couldn't be certain. He had been so strung out, he couldn't even be certain which way was up. Now his mind was clear but he was completely paralyzed, physically helpless and bordering on mental hysteria. And still she was there. That strange little girl. Only this time she dragged a chair up to the side of his gurney and knelt up on the seat of that chair. She gazed down at him, gazed tenderly into his eyes. And then she bent forward and kissed him with innocent sweetness on the outside corner of each of his eyes, scooting down and quickly away as the sound of heavy footfalls came from outside the room just before several Thrush thugs entered through the doorway._

See Delphina as a heartless fiend? How could he? She had been no more than a child, and one seemingly as isolated in all of her young life as he had been during the days of that ordeal.

Napoleon ran a hand through his hair.

"She was just a child," he summed up straightforwardly. "She was used."

"She's not a child now," pronounced Trice matter-of-factly. Then she took Solo's face once more between her palms, her eyes scouring his. "Do you think she is still being used?" she required an answer of him.

Napoleon let his eyes remain steady on those of Trice. "I don't know," he responded candidly.

"But Illya doesn't think so," Illya's wife guessed perceptively.

"Illya has more reason to distrust her than I do," conceded Napoleon.

"And you came to me because?" she forwarded the final query.

"Because I just want to make sure Illya is…" Napoleon mentally grappled to find the right words. "That he's grounded in the present and not blinded by the past. I'm not in a position to confirm that in this case."

"No, you're not," settled Trice as she released her hold on his face even as her mind and heart leapt at this undeniable proof of how this man, her husband's dearest friend, did not in the least mistrust her, of how much faith he had in her and how he valued not only her insight but her rapport with Illya, almost as if he understood that connection as an indispensable offshoot of his own. "But realize, Napoleon, that it may be **you** who isn't grounded in the present, **you** who is being blinded by the past," she felt compelled by some inner disquiet to warn him. "I'm not sure why you believe you can trust this woman, but it may be no more than blurred emotions playing tricks on you."

"I didn't say I trust her!" protested Napoleon.

"Sweeting," concluded Trice as she intertwined the fingers of one of her hands with the fingers of one of his, "you didn't have to."

* * *

"You are the agents sent by U.N.C.L.E.?" the pleasant-looking middle-aged woman sought confirmation as she entered this well-appointed room of the Consulate General of Finland located in the United Nations Plaza in New York City.

"Yes, Madam Consul," Jack responded with polite deference. "Jack Valdar," he introduced himself to the diplomat as he produced his U.N.C.L.E. credentials, "Chief Enforcement Agent for the North American division of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement."

"Natasha Kuryakin, Enforcement Agent," his partner introduced herself in turn as she subsequently exhibited her own U.N.C.L.E. identification for the Finn's inspection.

Formalities satisfied, the Finnish Consul General got right to the heart of the matter.

"The sterling reputation of your organization precedes you," affirmed the diplomat easily, "and the international influence of your Mr. Solo is well known not only to me but to my entire government. Even so, I do not think it misplaced to reveal to you how dismayed I was to learn of your agency's request through official channels for a sample of pure lucisorqe."

Of all places on earth, natural deposits of lucisorqe had thus far only been discovered in the country of Finland. It was mined from within sedimentary layers beneath the depths of Fronborg Fjord, Finland's one icy vuone, a hazardous procedure that had to be undertaken with great care and was under strict government control.

"I understand the mineral is exceedingly rare, distinctly so in pure form," commented Natasha.

"You do not understand even half of the prickly situation with regard to my government's reluctance to make the mineral available for research at the current time," expounded the Consul. "Please, be seated and I will attempt to make all clear, particularly as it is likely U.N.C.L.E. will shortly be called in to aid in this matter. The problem is growing somewhat out-of-hand and the trail to its resolution much too internationally convoluted for our own law enforcement agencies to effectively pursue."

"Indeed?" questioned Jack, his CEA-attuned senses alerted, as he and Natasha took the offered seats on an elegant silk-covered sofa and the Consul settled in a wingchair facing them.

"For some months, perhaps as long as a year," the Finnish woman began her revelation, "stores of lucisorqe have been secretly plundered. The culprit or, more likely, culprits have proven elusive to identify, let alone apprehend. To make matters more complicated, these robberies have not come solely from any one store, but rather from many."

"Thus eliminating a single, independent suspect," concluded Jack.

"There exists more than one reserve of such a rare governmentally regulated mineral?" Natasha inquired in some amazement.

"Though existing quantities of lucisorqe are indeed quite minimal," acknowledged the Consul, "initially it was considered prudent to distribute these albeit small amounts amongst a goodly number of prestigious research facilities within my country, thus providing more avenues for experimentation and many means of duplicate testing."

"Though I can appreciate the intention of such wide range distribution," allowed Jack, his usual bluntness only thinly veneered with diplomatic tact, "surely the result of such in the end could only be a breakdown in the synchronized tracking of the entirety of your country's pure lucisorqe stockpile."

The Consul smiled wryly. This man from U.N.C.L.E. certainly didn't mince words. Sitting at her partner's side, Natasha had to tenaciously resist the urge to nudge Jack as a means of physical reminder that political niceties really should be considered before criticizing a government's program of dealing with its own natural resources.

"Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened," the Finn noted without any sign of pique at Jack's directness. "Thus it was some time before it could be verified actual quantities of lucisorqe had gone permanently missing. The individual amounts lost from each facility were so miniscule; it was originally thought improper containment of the mineral resulted in a form of degeneration or evaporation that decreased any particular reserve over time. But, as more was learned of lucisorqe's specific properties, this was discredited as a misguided idea."

"More like a sloppy rationalization," Jack mentally charged, though he was at least circumspect enough not to voice this particular censure.

The Consul sighed. "And as well it did have to be recognized at last that, when added together, the losses of the mineral were not truthfully quite so miniscule."

"Rather enough to raise alarm," advanced Natasha certainly.

The Consul General nodded. "Still, as no especial use had yet been discovered for lucisorqe," she noted by way of clarification, "that it would be accounted a commodity worth the trouble of stealing was an option not given much consideration. The mineral seemed no more than a scientific curiosity; so simple human error in measuring and recording procedures was presumed the culprit for the discrepancies."

"But that presumption was stood on its ear, so to speak, when U.N.C.L.E. informed your government that lucisorqe was likely the key ingredient in a coating used for a Thrush-created light manipulation suit," Jack coolly stated the obvious facts.

"That usage was verified by your labs this morning, as I understand," ventured the Consul.

"Yes," declared the CEA straightforwardly.

The Finn sighed once more.

"So it must now be fully credited by my government that lucisorqe has become valuable within the framework of the black market," the middle-aged woman pronounced solemnly, "with all the ramifications regarding the lost stores that such entails. All experimentation on the mineral has already been halted, and the remaining stockpiles are to be gathered in a protected central location. We don't yet know how any of the mineral was furtively taken across Finnish borders in past months, but somehow it was. Yet we do know we have no intention of losing more of this extraordinary resource in such a slipshod way. Therefore, I'm sure you can appreciate my government's present disinclination to provide any samples in pure form."

"Understandable of course," agreed Natasha. "However, the U.N.C.L.E. labs urgently require a sample of the pure mineral for testing," she succinctly put forth her organization's viewpoint. "Though we know the coating uses lucisorqe in a complex chemical combination, what we can't determine without a pure sample is whether the mineral might be useable in other compounds to produce other effects regarding light."

"Not just light," supplied the Finnish woman. "Other unique properties exist in the mineral of which your scientists have already been made aware."

"And Thrush is always seeking to create new technology to utilize in its pursuit of power," supplemented Jack. "The light manipulation suit is ingenious in and of itself, but the coating presents the possibility of other concoctions using any of these unique properties of lucisorqe in ways perhaps essentially less benign."

The Consul laughed somewhat nervously. "Benign is not a term I would use to describe the particular invention in question, considering the clever cover it could provide for terrorist attacks."

Natasha nodded. "U.N.C.L.E. is very much aware of this dangerous prospect, Madam Consul, be assured."

The Finn nodded in turn.

"And that is why in the end your agency's request has been granted," the Consul finalized, "because there is immediate danger in this current usage of lucisorqe and because it portends the opportunity of engendering great tragedies. Perhaps a way can be found to make the lucisorqe in the chemical compound of the coating react in some way to reverse its very effectiveness. Yet the time for discovery in this vein could be preciously short."

With that she rose from her chair, went to a nearby small desk and activated an intercom. "Have the item brought in," she requested via this means of internal communication.

Within minutes a muscular fellow, likely from some Finnish security group, entered carrying a small strongbox. The Consul took the box from his hand and then nodded for him to take his leave. Alone once more with the two U.N.C.L.E. agents, she sat down again in the chair she had previously vacated. Pushing the buttons of the electronic lock in a specific sequence, she opened the strongbox she had set in her lap and removed from its depths a small, sealed metal tube much the size and shape of a lipstick case.

"The tube itself is titanium," she informed Jack and Natasha. "It has been found that lucisorqe exhibits odd magnetic properties when in comes in contact with certain types of metals, particularly steel, such magnetic currents substantially heightening corrosion of those metals when the mineral is in its pure form. With titanium, however, these properties are not activated, or at least not enough to result in such rapid corrosion."

The Finn then passed the small tube over to Jack Valdar as senior agent in attendance.

"I don't wish to sound melodramatic," the Consul avowed with a somewhat lopsided and hesitant smile, "but I'm certain you both realize exactly what is at stake here. The likelihood my government would provide another pure sample of lucisorqe even to U.N.C.L.E., should this one be compromised while in your hands, is frankly nonexistent. Therefore, I must insist that in providing the means of delivery for this unexpected treasure you, as the old saying goes, guard it with your lives."

Jack smirked.

"We are well aware not only of the saying, but the reality of the sentiment behind it," he guaranteed the Finnish diplomat as he accepted the prized vial.

Back outside in the bright sunlight of the crisp winter's day, Valdar and Kuryakin ambled, with a particularly nonchalant air, through the U.N. Plaza, purposely taking in the busy surroundings.

Del Floria's with its hidden entrance to NY HQ was only a few short blocks away. Back in the mid-1990s when a suspicious fire had destroyed the U.N.C.L.E. offices behind the novelty store, Solo had moved headquarters back to the accommodations behind the Del Floria tailor shop. It had been the most logical arrangement, as the Command still owned that property which had been in the interim used for records storage. Thus some of the building's security systems had already been upgraded to newer technology and U.N.C.L.E.'s policymakers recognized improving those further as a cheaper alternative than properly outfitting an entirely new location. Also the old offices already were installed with air and water filtration systems separate from those of the city's services, and the entire structure had the capacity to function on backup in-house electrical generators when necessary. Solo had also expressed a decided preference for the metal interior of the former headquarters, especially after that devastating fire which had wreaked so much havoc with the new. And automatic doors had advantages, even if they came with their own share of problems. So the past headquarters had been refitted to suit the present age and what was old had become new again. The unexpected side benefit of this had been that it had taken Thrush several years before that shadow organization had figured out U.N.C.L.E. was once more ensconced in its former digs.

At this precise moment, however, Jack and Natasha didn't want to be careless about making a beeline right to Del Floria's. They practiced the caution ingrained in all trained field agents regarding the possibility of leading anyone directly to their home base. Accordingly they stopped at a newsstand, picked up a sightseer's guidebook, and casually flipped through its pages, heads close together with Jack bending to Natasha's lesser height as they ostensibly pointed out various notations in the book to one another. Just like a couple of tourists selecting which sites they had an interest in visiting.

"The fellow there with the camera at about three o'clock seems a bit too interested in us," commented Natasha in a quiet voice.

"Yes," agreed Jack in an equally quiet tone without so much as peeking toward the man in question. "Looks like a bird of prey. But I don't detect any trailing flock."

"I'm sure even Thrush would not risk a confrontation in this crowded plaza," the junior partner of the team noted by way of reasonable explanation for the one-man show.

"And Thrush couldn't be sure we'd even get a sample of lucisorqe," decided the senior partner. "In fact, I'd venture to say our observing bird still isn't sure of that."

"So simple pickpocket attempt?" Natasha voiced the most likely scenario.

Jack nodded. "But let's insure he pickpockets only what we want him to," he added.

The younger agent quizzically raised an eyebrow at the CEA.

Stabbing a finger at a page in the guidebook as public answer to Natasha's questioning look (the sharpness of that gesture alerting the junior agent the look had definitely been a blunder on her part), Jack brusquely inquired of her; "You have a lipstick in your purse?"

"Yes," acknowledged Natasha, already seeing where this was heading. "Plain silver case too."

"Then we're going to do a little false exchange right under our bird's beady eye," he informed her easily. "You understand?"

Natasha did. She nodded.

With that she stretched up slightly to deposit a kiss on Jack's cheek, as if they were friends about to go their separate ways. Subsequently Jack dipped a hand into his inner topcoat pocket and retrieved a handkerchief, wiping idly at the lipstick spot on his cheek before depositing the linen square back in that pocket. Natasha then opened her purse and removed her tube of lipstick and a compact. Opening the compact to expose the mirror, she uncapped the lipstick and applied a fresh coat to her mouth. Then she closed the compact, dropping it back into her handbag, and capped the lipstick. That lipstick was still in her hand, however, as Jack reached out, wrapping one of his hands around that one of hers, and leaned in to give her a departing hug. In that surrounding hand of his was the tube of lucisorqe he had likewise retrieved from his inner topcoat pocket. With purposeful dexterity, Jack rotated the tubes once between their clasped hands, such movement intended for the Thrush to visually register. Then more stealthily (and Natasha had to admit she was amazed at Jack's talent for performing sleight of hand), Jack rotated the tubes a second time so that both of them came away holding the original tubes with which they had started out.

"Be sure and convince him you have the real one, greenstick," Jack whispered in her ear.

"You mean look like a rookie agent?" she countered somewhat flippantly.

"Yes, but don't **act** like a rookie agent," admonished Jack in a final murmur against her ear before they broke their seemingly friendly embrace.

With those final instructions Natasha plopped the supposed lucisorqe tube back in her purse as indifferently as a mere lipstick (which it was) and walked off through the plaza, giving Jack a farewell wave. The Thrush hesitated for a moment on pursuing her as Jack offhandedly tucked the guidebook (lucisorqe vial safely out of view inside) into a side pocket of his coat and sauntered off in the opposite direction. Something about the way the young woman held the purse clutched tight against her body convinced the enemy operative that the scene he had witnessed had indeed been a true exchange with the seemingly green female agent receiving in the end the item he himself had been told to obtain. His suspicion was this was done because Jack Valdar was a known U.N.C.L.E. agent, while this other one was not someone the Thrush could readily identify from dossier photos. Since it was after all but a courier mission, entrusting someone less generally recognized than Valdar with the ultimate prize seemed a logical tack to his mind. Thus the Thrush chose to trail Natasha as she wove her way through the crowd in the plaza, falling back into hiding as she pointedly scanned the area on several occasions. He followed as she walked into a souvenir shop and shadowed her out through the shop's opposite door, watching as her eyes darted about. He successfully and he believed undetectably unlatched and reached into her purse, extracting the lipstick, as she was jostled by a passerby who sought to claim a curbside cab before she did. Then Natasha climbed into the next cab as it slid almost immediately up to the curb, summoned by the female agent with a deft activation of a button on the cell phone in her coat pocket the instant the Thrush had made the grab. In this vehicle driven by a fellow U.N.C.L.E. employee she settled back for a ride to one of the alternate entrances to NY HQ, her Cheshire cat grin something the at least temporarily self-satisfied Thrush never saw.

When she finally arrived at headquarters she encountered Jack in the elevator on his way back from delivering the real vial of lucisorqe safely to U.N.C.L.E. lab personnel. Mutely, she opened her purse with a ready wink. Jack understood that the Thrush had fully bought into the ruse.

"Good work, greenstick," was the only comment he made before exiting the elevator on the floor of the enforcement offices.

Natasha, walking slightly behind him, secretly glowed under the effect of the unfussy compliment bestowed by her uncompromising partner.

* * *

"Ty khochesh' proverit' etot material, Gena?" questioned the man he had put in charge of securing the 'special cargo' here in Moscow for the trip onto its ultimate destination in New York.  
{Translation: You want to check out this stuff, Gena?}

"Ty yevo uzhe proveril, da? Ya polagayus' na tvoj vklad v etom voprosye," Gennadiy Yunusov kept his tone as neutral as possible. Truth was he had no intention whatsoever of handling even a sealed tube of that gun oil. The mineral immersed in the compound was something he knew next to nothing about, and he didn't want to discover any unpleasant details through up-close and personal inspection.  
{Translation: You have already checked it, yes? I trust you to have efficiently done your part in this.}

The other man chuckled before noting wryly in English, "It won't sap away your manhood, you know."

"Says you," thought Yunusov tersely to himself, though the only verbal response he gave was "I left off screwing around with greasy potions once I became a man of means."

"That so?" the other man challenged with an amused grin. That wasn't exactly what he'd heard; though he had to admit what he'd heard had been mentioned in an entirely different context.

"My part in all this is making sure that stuff gets to Thrush in conjunction with the weapons shipment," Yunusov stated frankly. "They very much want it and are willing to pay top price for it, so I've no qualms about getting the crap into the States through our general channels for transporting armaments. But frankly I don't know what all the fuss is about, and just as frankly I don't care to know."

Getting the pure lucisorqe out of Finland had been an easy task for the criminal group of which he was an integral part. The Finns had been "asleep at the wheel", as the saying went, and transporting the semi-liquid state mineral across into Russia had been amazingly simple. Having it mixed into the gun oil concoction, recipe provided directly by Thrush, had been more difficult and taken many months to his understanding. He had not been directly involved in either the initial stealing or the subsequent smuggling or the final "revamping" of the lucisorqe, and he considered his personal lot in this regard a fortunate one. Yet he did appreciate that in the end it all had been achieved faultlessly by those of his ilk. And now Thrush was about to get its coveted mineral mixed in that gun oil as part of the third and final weapons allotment Yunusov had been handling with them for half-a-year.

Thrush would be sending an independent mercenary type to assess the actual weapons, as they had on both previous occasions before accepting final delivery (and forking over the cash). Yet as to who-in-the-heck would be checking out the chemical part of this last distribution, he didn't know and didn't care. That wasn't his problem. And honestly if the lucisorqe in the gun oil wound up being impossible to extract again in anything approaching pure form, that wasn't his headache either. Those higher in his organization than himself held tight the reins on that particular responsibility.

His personal responsibility was the weaponry, and that's all that really concerned him. That the "final say" men in his own group had wanted to piggyback the mineral drop onto his operation, an operation that had run smooth as silk the past two times out, actually did somewhat annoy him for all his claims otherwise. This put a variable into the final equation over which he had little actual control.

Yet he well understood the riches to be made from all this, and knew he would get his share. And he did so enjoy wealth, did so enjoy the lifestyle it granted him in the U.S. With the intense appetite of a true sybarite, he reveled in his cars and his penthouses and his rare wines and the selection of muscle-bound Hercules types his affluent lifestyle afforded him in willing lovers.

So he would sensibly keep his eyes on the prize… and just as sensibly keep his hands (and every other part of him) away from that goddamn gun oil.

* * *

Jack Valdar stood guard over the female Thrush agent here in one of the standard interrogation rooms at U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in New York just as he had the day before. Nothing unusual in this. Only tonight they had been waiting on the arrival of the official interrogator for at least a half-hour. And this was indeed unusual.

The only information Jack had regarding the current situation was that the Number 1 of Section III had been urgently called into the office of the Number 1 of Section I just before the second interrogation session of the Thrushie was scheduled to begin. The timing of that session had already been set back almost four hours at the order of Napoleon Solo, an order relayed through his secretary. It seemed the Continental Chief was out of HQ that afternoon and wished the questioning postponed until his return. That seemed a reasonable enough command decision in the eyes of the Number 1 of Section II, but the subsequent additional delay, once the prisoner had already been led into the interrogation room, did not. It just was not standard procedure to keep a potentially dangerous captive sitting idly in an interrogation room rather than locked securely in a holding cell, and Valdar detested and distrusted any break with standard procedure.

"You always get so peeved by the unanticipated, Mr. Valdar?" Delphina Reikedahl turned her face to him and addressed Jack, accurately recalling his name from its mention during yesterday's standard recording procedure.

He stared into her eyes, into those hazel-brown eyes of hers so uncomfortably like Solo's.

"The unanticipated usually results in trouble," stated Jack tersely in response.

The Thrush laughed lightly.

"And what trouble could I be surrounded by so many capable U.N.C.L.E. agents in your HQ?" she questioned in an amused tone. "And with only this?" she tapped the pale blue prisoner badge she wore on her standard issue jumpsuit. "I wouldn't get ten feet out of this room before setting off every damnable alarm in this place."

"Don't try that 'one helpless detainee all alone against the system' routine with me," warned Jack in a hard voice. "**I** haven't forgotten that you managed somehow to steal into the Continental Chief's office without setting off a single damnable alarm in this place."

Delphina shrugged delicately.

"Perhaps it was the suit," she uttered noncommittally.

Valdar let his gray eyes hold hers in a relentless glare.

"And perhaps it was not the suit," he uttered almost as ambiguously as she. But not quite… "The bio-drone should still have picked up your bio-magnetic field as foreign."

Delphina let on nothing about the import of the information she had just so casually received as she merely shrugged once more.

"It's only experimental, isn't it?" she probed just a little. "Perhaps it has a fatal flaw in its design."

"Perhaps," allowed Jack, backing off from his vocal blunder. He was perfectly aware of what she was doing. Did she really believe him so dull-witted or so naive as not to be? "But even such would not explain how you gained entrance into that particular office in the first place, now would it? Are you going to try and persuade me you snuck in behind some unsuspecting employee and navigated your way into Solo's office from any entrance floors and elevators below?"

"I **was** wearing the light manipulation suit," she reminded him, a playful smile pulling at her lips because she understood quite well he was not going to buy into that easy explanation.

"And so you waited with the patience of a saint at every elevator and door until you could successfully piggyback your own entry onto someone else's?" challenged Jack gamely. "The suit only makes the wearer invisible to the eye, Ms. Reikedahl, not completely immaterial of body. We both know there is only one way you got into that office, and that is through the private portal for the Number 1 of Section I. The security through there is based largely on retinal scanning techniques and," he finalized with a studied look fixed straight on her eyes, "I suspect you can trick those, can't you?"

"Perhaps," suggested Delphina as she gave him an equally studied look. She did like this one. He had all the sharp prickles of a huddled porcupine combined with all the predatory instincts of a hunting wolf. "But you forget, Mr. Valdar, Thrush has never yet discovered the location of that secret entrance. Though I do admit not for any lack of trying."

"Thrush as a group may not have, but **you** as an individual have," declared Jack without a shadow of doubt.

"I suppose it will do no good to absolutely assure you that I have personally no knowledge of that entrance's location," she ventured almost tauntingly, as if baiting him to come up with another solution to the puzzle of her undetected access into the office of Napoleon Solo.

"No good whatsoever," stated Jack flatly, absolutely refusing to rise to the bait.

"Time alone will tell then," Delphina settled in an oddly quiet voice as she turned her countenance away from Jack.

Time alone would indeed tell. Already modifications were being made to the existing security for "the fifth entrance", as it was still called. Perhaps in the end the location itself would need to be altered, but that would be a larger undertaking Solo had instructed should wait until more was certain and not just surmised. Valdar personally did not agree with the wait, but he was not the Number 1 of Section I. His opinion had been sought along with that of each North American division Section Chief, duly noted by Napoleon Solo, and then promptly ignored. So for his own part, the Number 1 of Section II hoped the Number 1 of Section III would wring the full truth right from the lips of this woman during today's interrogation session and thus force Solo's hand. Though Jack Valdar disliked Napoleon Solo, he still -- albeit sometimes grudgingly -- respected him both as his superior and as a man who had personally done much for U.N.C.L.E. as an organization. And Jack Valdar was doggedly dedicated to the Command. Thus he ultimately wanted no preventable ill to befall its foremost policymaker.

Jack decided he had finished talking with this woman, as undoubtedly his discourse had been a bit unguarded. Such suspicion of rashness in himself caused him to concentrate his attention more intently upon his captive and it was then he caught her again at her tricks of sleight of hand. This time she was slyly pulling threads from the elasticized hem of one sleeve of her black jumpsuit and twining them around her fingers, passing them all but unnoticeably between one hand and the other as if playing a private game of cat's cradle.

"Must I handcuff you again?" he alerted her that her covert actions had been espied.

"I am just passing the time," she teased. "I did tell Mr. Kuryakin that I bore easily; yet he has kept me waiting here unengaged for an unconscionably long time. However, by all means," she furthered as she theatrically extended her hands outward over the table, "do your duty as you see fit, Mr. Valdar."

Jack did exactly that, pulling a set of handcuffs from the back of his belt, stepping forward, looping the chain of the shackles securely though the steel ring on the tabletop and then snapping the bracelets to her wrists. As he bent his head to perform the final portion of this action, Delphina whispered pointedly in his ear, "If you wish to learn how to perform such stealthy feats of dexterity as you have seen me exercise, I would be only too happy to teach you."

Jack's gray eyes shot to the hazel-brown ones of the forward Thrush. She smiled unselfconsciously.

"I appreciate someone whose concentration is fine-tuned enough to catch me out in the act of my much practiced skills," Delphina expounded in a normal level of voice. Then she commented very authoritatively, "Do not let anyone ever tell you such tenacious and single-minded focus is less than an asset, Mr. Valdar. I guarantee you it is a tool with many unexpected uses."

Jack had no idea what to say in return to such a statement, so he wisely said nothing at all.

Perhaps it was indeed fortuitous the Section III Head made his very belated entrance at that precise moment. To Valdar the older Section Chief looked irritated and somewhat putout, not an expression the younger man was accustomed to seeing revealed so unshielded on Kuryakin's face. Jack's nerves tensed to full vigilance.

Illya felt backed into a tight corner by Napoleon's guidelines for the upcoming interrogation and he didn't much like it. The Continental Chief had pointedly refused him the go-ahead to use the newspaper photo in any way during his questioning of Delphina. Even more inexplicably, the Section I Head had adamantly instructed his friend he was not to bring up the topic of Niles Ospreye unless the woman first broached that subject herself, not a very likely scenario. Illya had no clue why Napoleon was purposely tying his hands in this regard, but he had already determined that -- restricted by his superior's atypical orders or not -- he was going to break the Thrush during this session. Crack open her mind like an egg and professionally scoop out all the revealed data. Only then would he have the evidence needed to prove to his suddenly too empathetic partner that Delphina Reikedahl was not someone to be trusted even in the most nebulous of fashions.

The Number 1 of Section III glanced over at the Thrushie with her hands firmly cuffed to the table and spoke in a tone of crystal-clear command to the Number 1 of Section II, "The ankles secured as well this time, Mr. Valdar."

Jack competently hid his surprise at the other man's order but efficiently did as he was bid, sliding another set of cuffs off the back of his belt and then through the steel loop on the floor under the table, finally snapping one bracelet of the pair snugly around each of Delphina's ankles.

"Do you consider me so egregious a threat then, Mr. Kuryakin?" queried the doubly manacled captive in a somewhat bemused tone.

"I consider you a Thrush agent with an agenda yet unknown," replied Illya evenly. "And I believe the time to treat such stark facts carelessly has passed."

The Russian's ice-blue eyes met and held the hazel-brown ones of the Norwegian for an intentionally long moment, that steady gaze communicating in no uncertain terms the steel of the interrogator's resolve in this matter.

"I see," was the only response from the technological residual, a response uttered in a very quiet and perhaps more apprehensive vocal timbre than was her general wont.

Valdar wanted to vociferously cheer Kuryakin's decision. At last someone was taking a firm hand with this woman. The CEA bit his tongue lightly in an attempt to keep the pleased smirk off his face. It was an attempt that didn't fully succeed.

Thoughtfully Illya slipped one hand into his jacket pocket and curled ready fingers around the capped syringe filled with a sodium thiopental solution resting there. At least Napoleon had given his permission, albeit reluctantly, for injection of the veridical. Though both former field agents were all too familiar with the unpleasant after-effects of such drugs and thus had a natural distaste for employing them when grilling an enemy, such was surely the gentlest means of physical coercion available for said purposes. A headache and nausea were mild stuff in comparison to the cornucopia of residual ills resulting from administrations of the far more powerful and dangerous pharmaceuticals that served as Thrush's stock-in-trade in similar situations. And that was not even mentioning the cruder tools all too often utilized by those of fewer scruples than the denizens of U.N.C.L.E.

The last part of his most recent conversation with Solo came back uncompromisingly into Kuryakin's mind…

"_It's skirting the edge, Illya," Napoleon sternly and somewhat insultingly admonished his friend. "We don't torture prisoners."_

"_It is a method we have used successfully before," Illya reminded him._

"_I know that," granted the other man. "But I still don't like it, and technically the organization could be called to task for it."_

"_By who?" Illya fairly bristled with indignation now. "As if Thrush is going to make a case to any world court about our lack of strict adherence to the tenets of the Geneva Convention."_

"_Illya, I just don't like the message it sends," Napoleon cautioned the other man. "Our methods, not just our ideologies, aren't those of Thrush."_

"_No, they are not," agreed Illya. "However, you are fully aware I have the expertise to administer a safe though effective dose and that I will undertake no more than that. She won't be physically harmed, Napoleon, a nicety Thrush doesn't care two pins about guaranteeing."_

_After a rather uncomfortably long silence, Solo sighed in both reticence and resignation._

"_All right, Illya, I'll allow it," he conceded without enthusiasm, "but be scrupulously certain to keep it all in close check. You understand me?" Napoleon finalized in that voice with its undercurrent of plain intimidation he reserved for unmistakable and not-to-be-disregarded command._

"_Perfectly," Illya noted in a very dry and cool tone. He was not accustomed to Napoleon adopting such an attitude with him…_

Kuryakin strode to the recording station and began the standard preliminaries of the interrogation session.

"Date: December 23rd, 2007. Time: 1815 hours by the Eastern Standard. Location: New York Headquarters for the North American division of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. In accordance with standard interrogation procedures published within the public charter, established 1946, last revised 2005, of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, I hereby make it known to all parties that the entirety of this interrogation session will be both video and audio recorded with all thus documented testimony entered permanently into the files of the Command.

"Second session for Interrogation Subject: Delphina Reikedahl, self-admittedly attached to the organization known as Thrush. Interrogator for this session: Illya Nickovech Kuryakin, currently Number 1 in Section III, Enforcement and Intelligence, North American division of U.N.C.L.E. Present in security capacity: Jacques Valdar, currently Number 1 in Section II, Operations and Enforcement, North American division of U.N.C.L.E."

Technicalities properly satisfied, Illya walked back toward the table, only he did not take his seat. Instead he stood to one side, his attitude subtly intimidating.

The interrogator set his eyes once more upon the face of the interrogation subject. That this woman had some sort of odd emotional hold, vague though it might be, over his one-time partner was not lost on Illya. Yet he was completely puzzled as to the actual nature of that hold or even why it existed at all. Neither of their dealings with her in the past could be described as pleasant. She had served as a lure to catch each of them in turn within a horrific Thrush trap, the stuff of nightmares literally. Some instinctual knot in the very pit of his gut warned Illya she was again serving in that role. Yet he was positively resolute she would not successfully manage that feat this time. He would use that resolution to protect Napoleon, who seemed in the main oblivious to any such possible attempt on Delphina's part.

Intrinsically Illya Kuryakin could not do otherwise. The survival of Napoleon Solo formed an ingrained piece of his own soul, had done so for longer than he cared to remember. So this time the Russian had absolutely no intention of winding up even for a moment bound and gagged and utterly helpless to aid the American, even if such an unenviable position now would likely be only metaphorical rather than physical.

Wrapping his fingers more tightly around the unseen syringe in his pocket, Illya informed Jack impassively, "Procedure 5X1, Mr. Valdar."

Jack nodded crisply and headed to the intercom.

"Aren't you going to tell me what that entails?" queried Delphina, maintaining all her usual controlled calm. "After all, I did considerately perform that service for you all those years ago with regard to the procedures being performed on Mr. Solo."

"You will know soon enough," was all the answer the interrogator deigned to give the soon-to-be interrogated.

"Agents Walters and Kuryakin: report to Interrogation Room 4. Procedure 5X1 protocol," Valdar spoke briskly into the intercom.

Within minutes, perhaps it was no more than mere seconds, the two summoned agents -- one male and one female -- made their way through the pneumatic door into the interrogation room.

Natasha inconspicuously studied the person of the Thrush technological residual as she waited silently for her superior's signal for the procedure to begin. Truth be told, she had been dying to come face-to-face with the woman. Assessing the prisoner quickly but thoroughly, Natasha thought her physical appearance definitely striking with that long, slender column of throat -- a swan neck she had once heard such a feature favorably described -- and those startling white eyelashes and eyebrows. Neither had the Section V guards, with whom she had idly spoken over coffee of the Thrush, been exaggerating when they insisted she appeared to have stolen the eyes of Natasha's own beloved Dyadya right out of his face.

Mentally Delphina registered the resemblance between the female U.N.C.L.E. agent and her interrogator. Valdar had indeed requested the presence of an "Agent Kuryakin", so apparently this young woman was Illya Kuryakin's daughter. That this scion existed and now was herself part of the Command was no secret to Thrush and their meticulous record-keepers. Delphina experienced an odd disquiet that this current encounter, whatever it turned out to be, should be facilitated by the Kuryakin father/daughter duo. And the sudden realization that, if this was Kuryakin's daughter, then the two support agents were lethally trained Section II operatives rather than more simply situationally trained Section V security personnel only partially accounted for that disquiet.

The CEA indicated through a subtle movement of his head toward each of his people what was to be each individual's station. Valdar himself moved to the right side of the seated Thrush, Walters to the left, and Natasha took up Jack's former position behind the prisoner.

For her own part, Natasha had never before assisted in a real-time Procedure 5X1, but from simulations in which she had participated during her time at Survival School she knew the routine as one would the memorized steps of a choreographed dance. Thus, at the interrogator's wordless downward drop of his hand, she took a blackout hood from a pocket in her skirt and, from behind and thus out of the subject's immediate line of sight, pulled it down over the head of the prisoner. And then she wrapped her arms around the shoulders of the Thrush and locked them in front of the older woman's body, keeping her secured against the back of the chair. Meanwhile, by pressing her elbows with undersides exposed tight to the front edges of the chair's armrests, Valdar and Walters in perfect synchronization each pinned one of the captive's arms, turning to advantage the looped chain limiting the movement of her hands from the tabletop.

In the back of her mind Delphina registered a frisson of shock. She hadn't expected U.N.C.L.E. to employ any methods of torture, but that had probably been misplaced arrogance on her own part. Thrush wasn't exactly an entity within the normal boundaries of accepted world tenets. It had thus perhaps been irrational to expect even U.N.C.L.E. to treat such a shadowy enemy with pristine white kid gloves.

Her thoughts crystallized back fully on the moment as she felt her right sleeve pushed up and a rubber cord being fastened around her thusly uncovered bicep. "No," her mind sparked in desperation, "not drugs! Let them beat me to a bloody pulp if they choose, but no drugs!"

An almost inhuman growl escaped her lips and she began to struggle wildly. Yet she was helpless against the combined strength and practiced grips of her captors. "Nei! Nei! Nei!" she screamed out over and over again, her voice guttural as her verbal command of English escaped beyond her immediate memory. She wrenched her body hard as she felt the needle pinch into a vein where the interrogator pricked it sharply through the flesh near the underside of the elbow of her pinioned right arm. Yet she couldn't wrest free of the hands that held her upper body virtually immobile, nor could she prevent the liquid in that needle from subsequently sliding into her pierced blood vessel. Soundless sobs shook through her as she felt the chemical take hold, her treasured internal centering blurring outward as her nerves tingled with unwanted sensations.

_From his place in his office, watching silently on the close-circuit monitor, Solo winced. It wasn't just a sympathetic reaction to the prisoner's plight that initiated this physical response. Nerves tingled throughout his body as he momentarily shook before gripping the edge of his desk and managing to reorient himself._

"Twenty-nine… twenty-eight… twenty-seven… twenty-six… twenty-five…"

The interrogator counted slowly backwards as he finally took his seat opposite the prisoner.

"Twenty-four… twenty-three… twenty-two… twenty-one… twenty…"

The prisoner's breathing slowed and deepened, though her body still shook as if caught in a violent windstorm.

"Nineteen… eighteen… seventeen… sixteen… fifteen…"

The two men clutching either of the prisoner's arms gradually released their grasps as her physical tremors lessened.

"Fourteen… thirteen… twelve… eleven… ten..."

The subject's body stopped trembling completely as her head sagged a bit forward.

"Nine… eight… seven… six… five…"

Natasha eased her arms from their locked clasp across the prisoner's shoulders.

"Four… three… two… one… and done."

The CEA removed the blackout hood from the head of the prisoner.

Hazel-brown eyes sought out the ice-blue ones of the interrogator. Though dazed and somewhat unfocused, that dark gaze was far from meek.

"Du vil aldri gjøre meg redd," the prisoner stated in a soft but steady voice, the repetition of the old warning subconsciously part of her defensive mechanism against the powerful Command-concocted version of sodium thiopental the interrogator had employed.  
{Translation: You will never make me afraid.}

"Such is not my intention," batted back the elder Kuryakin smoothly, outwardly untouched by her tactic though inwardly the knot in his gut tightened in its surety. "My intention is only to get you to speak the truth."

"Sannheten vil ikke sette meg fri," she countered.  
{Translation: The truth will not set me free.}

"Perhaps not," Illya conceded the point. "But such is not my concern. My concern is in protecting U.N.C.L.E."

"Ditt ansvar er å beskytte herr Solo," she simplified his answer coldly.  
{Translation: Your concern is in protecting Mr. Solo.}

"Mr. Solo, madam, is the chief policymaker for U.N.C.L.E.," Illya noted very forthrightly. "Thus those two goals are one and the same."

Illya knew his Norwegian, never one of his strongest languages, was currently rusty from long disuse, and he didn't relish the delay having to translate her answers might cause in pushing forward his turnabout questions. During any interrogation, but especially during one aided by a so-called truth serum, speed in parrying unguarded replies was key. The idea of a fast and furious verbal volley was to effectively limit downtime during which the subject might attempt to summon forth any mental reserve.

Since in her current drugged state Delphina was unlikely to refuse to obey a routine request, Illya decided to make that request.

"Speak English please."

Though she continued to eye him belligerently, she nevertheless complied as her next inquiry proved.

"What possible power can I have over Mr. Solo?" Delphina attempted to recollect the shattered remnants of her concentration.

"I'll rise to the bait," pushed back Illya quickly. "What possible power can you have over Mr. Solo?" he turned her question neatly back on her.

"None I can meaningfully demonstrate at present," she found her chemically loosened tongue admitting. "Not now that you have stolen away my clarity of mind with your drugs."

_Alone in his office Napoleon felt his heart rise into his throat. What was she saying? What did she mean? He wasn't even sure he really wanted to know._

Illya leaned back somewhat condescendingly in his chair, like a schoolmaster taking a recalcitrant pupil to task. "Pity that," he granted. "Yet we can start from the beginning to make everything fall correctly into place, can't we? Possible demonstration or not."

"You know I have little choice but to permit you to get the information you want," she stated dryly, "no matter which way you choose to probe for it."

"Yes, I do know," agreed Illya gamely. Whether it was unprofessional or not to do so, he really was enjoying this triumph. It seemed she was quite susceptible to drugging. This was perhaps not unexpected considering how chemicals had undoubtedly been used to physically alter her. Her body likely assimilated substance-induced changes at a much more rapid rate than the norm. "So let us start the knowledge-seeking repartee between us in earnest."

Delphina felt the slowness of her pulse as the blood coursed sluggishly through her arteries and veins. Her mind was floating untethered, releasing her vocal cords to vibrate into expressing "confidences" without restraint. Her eyes were heavy, her vision unable to center on anything for any length of time. Her limbs alternated between weighing a thousand pounds each to feeling lighter than air itself. The drug had her in its full embrace and she couldn't fight her way free, hadn't even the energy to truly try.

"Start then," she found herself incautiously prodding the male Kuryakin. Somehow her only current desire was to get this unpleasantness over and done as quickly as possible.

"That selection of…" Illya found the appropriate word sticking in his craw, lying like lead on his tongue, disgusting him that its technical overtones should be used to cover such blatant abuse of scientific method. "Specimens," he finally spat out, "your father medically extracted from Mr. Solo's body, did these serve as the basis of his later research?"

"The ones I snuck out from the operating theatre through the transport rail in the lab?" she spelled out unnecessarily from Illya's viewpoint. "Yes, they did. They provided the core of the studies and later of the trials."

_Napoleon shifted again. He felt as if he was losing all feeling in his extremities, going steadily numb. The sensation was less than pleasant._

"And what was Dr. Reikedahl seeking to glean exactly from those studies and trials?" Illya pressed for more details.

"Chemical compositions and electrical/magnetic wave patterns that could be used to modify nerve synapses."

Walters shifted on his feet uneasily. Natasha listened intently, leaning her head forward just a smidgen as she focused on her father's modus operandi for she knew well he had a sterling reputation as a hard-hitting and clever interrogator. Valdar moved not so much as an eyebrow.

"Modify in what way?" Illya continued to quest for more details.

"Stretch," Delphina noted with a puckered brow, as if the word was not the one she wished to grasp but it was the best one that came immediately to mind. "Amplify," her brow smoothed as a more proper term occurred to her.

"To augment the more regular patterns?" pushed the interrogator further.

"Yes," the Thrush assented with a confident nod.

"Why?" Illya posed the most pressing question.

"Why?" repeated Delphina, obviously confused.

"Yes, why. To what ultimate purpose?" the interrogator refined the query.

Delphina sought to pull together the shards of her mental control, sought to concentrate; yet she found doing so virtually impossible. She spoke the next words because she found they were the only ones in her head.

"I never asked why," she answered truthfully more than likely but much less than satisfactorily in Illya's opinion.

_Napoleon blinked. The child who obeyed without question because she did not understand what the questions should be. How had he sensed that so unerringly?_

"And yet you agreed to act as guinea pig for those experiments?"

"I was **not** a guinea pig," protested the Thrush uncompromisingly.

"Then what do you call what you were?" Kuryakin sought to catch her up.

Delphina frowned a moment, and then she smiled with unfeigned innocence, as if the heavens themselves had opened up and revealed their creator in full glory.

"En søt prøveversjon," she stated unequivocally.  
{Translation: A sweet trial.}

"English please," the Section III Head reminded the prisoner. "But you actually see yourself so? As 'a sweet trial'?"

"I see myself as nothing," some iron returned fleetingly to her will, though it was quickly gone. "It is only how I have been described by others."

"I would not describe you so," acerbically jibed Illya. "A trial most assuredly, but just as assuredly not sweet."

"You are prejudiced," candidly taunted the Thrush right back. "You believe I aim to somehow permanently damage your Mr. Solo."

Natasha unthinkingly let a short but very audible gasp escape her lips. Jack gave his temporary partner a severe and undeniably critical glare. Walters offered the rookie agent a half-smile of commiseration.

"And do you aim to do that?" demanded Illya quite reasonably, ignoring any and all of the reactions from others in that room.

"You do not understand," Delphina expounded with distraught eyes and a perplexed shrug of her shoulders. "You could not understand what Papa did either. You refuse to accept that nothing he did permanently damaged Mr. Solo. So I sincerely doubt you will accept the assurance that nothing I do will either."

"_Bull's-eye," noted Napoleon quietly in his only self-inhabited office. "She's made a dead-on hit with that observation, Illya."_

Secretly frustrated and more than a little annoyed, Illya kept his voice completely level as he moved on to another tack.

"Let's try for more specifics on these experiments and your involvement in them. Did they commence right away once your father was again in Thrush hands?"

"The experiments, yes," she answered very specifically. "My involvement in them, no."

"And why was that?" the interrogator probed with seemingly endless patience.

Delphina blinked at him several times before replying.

"You are a scientist, Mr. Kuryakin," she berated him almost with amusement. "The chemical compounds had to be discovered, disassembled to bare components, and then subtly reconfigured. The electrical and magnetic patterns had to be traced and successfully copied before any augmentations to them could be hazarded. There was no immediate need for subjects for clinical trials until all such particulars had been accomplished."

With his archeological background Jack, as a scientist very knowledgeable of technical procedure, had to concede the Thrush had snared Kuryakin pretty neatly in that casual scolding. Truth drug or no, she still possessed a polished slyness of wit, and Valdar begrudgingly gave her that tribute.

"When then did those clinical trials begin?" required Illya, never missing a beat.

"When it was time," Delphina responded again quite unsatisfactorily if quite straightforwardly.

"What year?" the interrogator precisely probed for accurate details.

"1971."

Illya didn't give any clue as to his private surprise, but the answer mentally raised such in him all the same.

"1971?" he repeated skeptically, definitely expecting the prisoner to amend the year.

"Yes," she stated surely. "I had just turned eleven years old, so autumn 1971."

Now the steel knot of utter surety in Illya's gut began to unravel some. In 1971 Napoleon had been… well, not tied to U.N.C.L.E. That year was during the fifteen-year interval when his friend had gone his own way. So, if whatever Reikedahl had been concocting had been something to specifically affect Napoleon, why go ahead with any "clinical trials" at that point? Perhaps the subjecting of Napoleon to the specimen taking had been merely by chance, after all. Perhaps he had been basically an available U.N.C.L.E. agent on whom Thrush could perform a dual task of gathering test samples for future experimentation while effectively torturing an enemy.

But then Illya focused on those eyes of Delphina, those eyes seemingly stolen from his partner, and the knot of surety tightened once more. He remembered all the preliminary setup to Solo's capture during that old affair, and knew without reservation none of it had been accidental. It had been planned, vigilantly planned to entrap one particular victim. Something was off here, but he didn't believe it was his initial assumption.

"Thrush must have been disappointed that all their research wound up centered on a man who was not, at the point of the actual clinical trials, any longer associated with U.N.C.L.E.," the interrogator attempted to gain some insight into this unforeseen riddle.

"Thrush has always employed very meticulous record-keepers," were the only words that greeted his verbal prodding, those words delivered as if barely worth the bother as Delphina's somewhat preoccupied smile suggested her mind was already moving beyond them to other thoughts.

_The hairs on the back of Solo's neck suddenly stood at attention. "It's not possible," he muttered in disbelief. Meticulous record-keepers or not, how could Thrush be privy to information that even inside U.N.C.L.E. itself remained to this day within the sole purview of the five hemispheric chiefs?_

Delphina, fortunately for U.N.C.L.E.'s internal security at that moment, went off on her own narrative tangent.

"You see it was theorized that the best environment in which to attempt to introduce any of the adaptive chemical and bio-magnetic structures into a test subject was during the onset of puberty," explained the prisoner with surprising detachment considering the 'test subject' in question was none other than herself. "At that point in physical development, the body is already undergoing so many biologically-related changes; it is unlikely to outright reject the introduction of foreign biologic elements, whether chemical, electrical or magnetic."

Walters whistled low and it was his turn to receive the severe and critical glare from the CEA. Natasha could well understand her fellow agent's uncharacteristic lapse of self-possession. She had herself needed to fight the urge to physically shudder as the implications of what the prisoner so casually disclosed hit her consciousness like a bucket of ice water.

Illya would very much have liked to pursue Delphina's previous statement about those meticulous Thrush record-keepers and all that might imply. Nevertheless, he suppressed his own inclination and instead swam with the tide of the prisoner's revelations. It was essential to keep her talking without thinking. And backtracking might jeopardize that, giving her time to push against the force of the drug and more measure her responses.

"Did that theory prove accurate?" therefore broached Illya at this juncture.

"Yes and no," Delphina responded with a certain amount of ambivalence.

"How both yes and no?" the interrogator pressured for a more definitive answer.

"The basic premise proved sound," explained the Thrush, "but compromises had to be made."

"Such as the loss of your hearing?" ventured U.N.C.L.E.'s Number 1 of Section III. This was no more than an educated guess of course. Yet Kuryakin was well aware the child he had encountered in the Thrush complex forty-odd years ago had shown no signs of the profound nerve deafness from which this woman openly admitted to suffering.

"Yes," came Delphina's initial monosyllabic reply.

"When I was a child," she then continued wistfully, "I loved to dance. Papa indulged me and I received lessons in everything from classical ballet to modern jazz. Then my hearing had to be forfeited."

"Surrendered," Natasha mentally expostulated, "to the selfish goals of Thrush science."

_Napoleon experienced a strange moment of loss, almost as if Delphina's "forfeit" had been his own._

"So 'Papa' created a special hearing aid for you," intimated Illya.

"He did do so," agreed the prisoner with obvious love in her voice. "Music, however, remains beyond my ability to auditorily connect. It's as if I hear only the separate pieces and cannot fit them together into a cohesive whole. I do not dance anymore."

This statement was so matter-of-fact, yet at the same time so achingly sad, Jack found himself reacting internally to that sadness, though externally no one would ever guess at any identifiable reaction on his part.

_Solo, to his own astonishment, caught his breath in a moment of bleak emotional turmoil. He released that breath slowly, trying to ground himself once more._

"Yet there were some successes, were there not?" the elder Kuryakin wanted to know. "Such as your eyes…"

A lopsided and uniquely child-like grin graced the face of the Thrush technological residual.

"Ah, my eyes," she began. "As a child I hated my eyes so very much. When I first saw the warm brown eyes of your Mr. Solo, I was captivated. I so wanted such eyes, eyes seemingly dark as the richest earth that could yet glint with sunlit gold or still with river green. So unlike the consistently glowing pink orbs that stood out in my own face like embers from the fires of hell itself. Papa promised me such eyes as part of the experiments, and he kept his promise."

Illya experienced a chill of realization that the promise of those "warm brown eyes" was what had been used to sway the eleven-year-old into the role of guinea pig. Though he personally felt no especial empathy for Delphina Reikedahl, this realization did cause him all the more to despise the cold-hearted and self-centered ways of Thrush, even on so insignificant a level.

"Obtaining them requiring a fair bit of surgery," the prisoner elucidated. "Size, shape, color: all had to be refined by scalpels as well as chemicals and even then-generally-untried surgical lasers. Thrush Central made the inflexible specification my retinal scans be altered to match those of Mr. Solo. That proved the most difficult part," she enlightened with a purse of her lips. "Papa had to labor long and hard to manage that feat, though he did so in the end. It turned out; however, he couldn't do anything about the cosmetic problem of the whiteness of my lashes and brows. You must appreciate that he naturally didn't want to risk any chemical that might result in blindness."

Walters harrumphed.

"That was decent of him," remarked Illya acidly.

"It all worked out in the final analysis," summarized Delphina. "I know my eyes are very like those warm brown ones now."

"You know?" the interrogator caught the peculiarity of that assertion. "Can't you see for yourself?"

"I can see as well as you, Mr. Kuryakin," she huffed. "I would dare say better. Except that I only see things as black or white or gray."

_Napoleon pinched the bridge of his nose. A pounding headache was overtaking him._

"The color receptors in your eyes were forfeited to these experiments as well?" Illya forwarded in a very detached voice, carefully using her own terminology with regard to her loss of faculty. Keeping perspective was the best way to deal with such revelations, he knew only too well. Captives often endeavored to play on the sympathies of their captors. Even though he had no doubt what the Thrush said was true, he also had no doubt she would take any advantage she could get, especially in her current situation where her tongue had been loosened against her preferred judgment. If she had no choice but to talk, he was convinced from long familiarity with such interrogation scenarios that she would use the talk to strive toward at least a form of personal compassion from those currently in power over her.

The prisoner noted the interrogator's obvious avoidance of a more sensitive term than forfeit for what had been required of her by the experiments, so she purposely utilized that term herself, robbing it of its emotive significance.

"Science often requires sacrifices, Mr. Kuryakin."

"And science so often does lack grace," Kuryakin expertly turned around her own words from that first encounter in Solo's office.

The smile she gave him in response was almost feral, reminding everyone in that room in no uncertain terms that, drugged into unwilling disclosure of pertinent truths or not, this woman was cunningly dangerous.

"On the whole, however, your father's 'science' was deemed a success?" Illya asked for a blunt clarification on this point.

Delphina furrowed her brow.

"Those in Central and especially those on the ruling council were not pleased by the length of time required before any noticeable results could be garnered," the Thrush acknowledged with some distinct upset. "They always wanted everything done at once, and Papa's experiments just didn't fit into that mold. So in the main they looked upon those experiments as worthless."

"Geniuses are never appreciated in their own time," Illya quipped with droll irony.

"Just so," gravely concurred the prisoner with a resigned sigh. "Still, Papa lent his expertise to a great many other projects for them, all of which had that desired aspect of quickly gained and immediately useful results. So they indulged him in his continued persistence with his pet project."

"And permitted you to live, technological residual of valueless experimentation that you were," stabbed out the interrogator with a dead-on thrust. He knew Thrush. Cutting losses was a tried-and-true strategy of their ultimate game plan.

Delphina smiled that almost feral smile once more.

"Papa saw to that," she frankly affirmed. "And when he feared he might no longer be able to do so, he arranged for a protector."

"A protector?" nudged Illya, his inner mental monitor registering the importance of this particular confession.

"Yes," Delphina went on talking she knew far too much. "There was a man in Central who was fascinated by the experiments and by me as the outcome of them." She remained self-infuriatingly powerless to stop the rash words from pouring in flood-like torrents out of her mouth. "Papa encouraged that fascination with the upshot this up-and-comer eventually became my lover and my champion."

"And who was this keenly fond advocate?" Illya made sure to keep his tone indifferent.

"Niles Ospreye," declared the Thrushie readily enough.

"_You've got the pitch you wanted, Illya," Napoleon conceded to his friend as he massaged his own aching temples. "Go ahead and swing for the fences."_

"I was seventeen years old when I became his singular obsession," Delphina furthered her response without prompting.

"Obsession," thought Jack to himself. "That's a precarious word indeed. I hope it serves to make clear to Solo the instability of the time bomb we presently have ticking in our midst."

"And still are?" pushed the interrogator, satisfaction with his score well hidden in his brusque manner.

"One survives however one can, yes, Mr. Kuryakin?" the Thrush insinuated shrewdly.

"One does indeed," agreed Illya. "And thus sometimes one finds it necessary to accede to the plans of a protector, yes, Ms. Reikedahl?"

Delphina tilted her head at him, assessing him quietly.

"And what do you believe might be any such plans, Mr. Kuryakin?" she demanded with more circumspection than the truth drug would normally allow.

Likely the effect of the sodium thiopental was mitigating, and Illya was only too aware he had promised to administer no more than the one dose that could absolutely be accounted safe. "I will have to move fast," he mentally advised himself. "There is still much I need to know."

"I would prefer to hear your own estimation in that regard, madam," he countered her.

"Perhaps the objective is to finally conclude all the clinical trials," the Thrush put forth another statement that likely was truth, but just as likely not all of it.

"Didn't those conclude long ago?" quizzed Illya.

"How could they, Mr. Kuryakin, when all things needful to such purpose remained out of reach?" she queried boldly as her eyes sought his with audacious intensity.

"Meaning Mr. Solo's presence?" Kuryakin hazarded the likely reality.

"Earlier this evening, Mr. Kuryakin, as we both waited patiently upon your arrival," ventured the prisoner with a strange little half-smile, "Mr. Valdar speculated that, in order to have gained unchecked access into Mr. Solo's office, I had all but certainly made free with the secret entrance into that office reserved for the Continental Chief's especial use."

Now it was Jack who shifted a bit uneasily. He did not much like having his indiscreet exchange with an enemy made public.

"My protestations that I personally have no knowledge as to that entrance's location could not convince your organization's CEA such was unvarnished truth," Delphina blithely continued. "Now, however, I pledge in good faith singularly to you, Mr. Kuryakin, the veracity of that statement I made to Mr. Valdar. Bluntly put: I have no rational clue where the fifth entrance to U.N.C.L.E. New York is located."

"Which leaves the irrational," Illya immediately picked up on her particular wording.

"But what man of science trusts in the irrational?" she mocked.

"Apparently Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl," acknowledged Illya incisively.

"A genius before his time," stated the genius' doting daughter. "While you, Mr. Kuryakin, are surely the devil a dying man once claimed you to be. Yet even with the sizzling pitchfork of your self-proclaimed righteous methods of non-bloody physical coercion, you haven't managed to burn me."

"On the contrary, Ms. Reikedahl," he gainsaid her assertion in his patented deadpan voice, "I believe I've seared you quite fork-tender."

Just at that moment the prisoner began to shake once more, the tremors quickly increasing in speed and force. She was fighting her way out from under the remaining influence of the drug and she wasn't doing it half-heartedly now. In what seemed no more than the blink of an eye, the tremors escalated to full-out convulsions, shuddering spasms rocketing through every muscle of her body as her eyes rolled back into her head.

"Medical emergency team to Interrogation Room 4!" Jack shouted into the intercom after moving his way there with professional alacrity.

"Get the cuffs off her!" ordered Illya immediately as he sprang from his chair at the observation of how those jerking limbs were causing the metal of the manacles to brutally bite into and bruise the flesh of her shackled extremities.

Natasha pulled back the head of the prisoner and placed what she had readily available between the older woman's teeth so to keep her tongue from rolling back in her mouth and obstructing her breathing. In this case what was readily available proved to be the new-style pen communicator several field agents were now testing. The research folks likely wouldn't be pleased by this unorthodox use of their innovation, but in the field -- whether that was in some Thrush satrapy or an U.N.C.L.E. interrogation room -- one did what one had to do.

Walters and Valdar set about the task of unlocking the cuffs and subsequently attempting to keep the woman from forcibly propelling her wildly twitching body onto the floor. The elder Kuryakin touched two fingers to the carotid artery in the woman's long column of white throat making a concerted effort to measure the overtaxed beats of her pulse.

_Napoleon placed a hand on his forehead, grimacing in agony. His brain felt like it was about to split wide-open. Feebly then he laid his throbbing head onto his crossed arms upon the huge revolving desk and silently prayed for the blinding pain to pass._

The medical emergency team arrived in the interrogation room and took over care of the prisoner, injecting her with a muscle relaxant though they would have preferred not to do so considering she was already under the barbiturate influence of U.N.C.L.E.'s truth serum. Still her convulsions were just too violent to do otherwise. Finally they got her stabilized, though she slipped into unconsciousness. Strapped to a gurney, she was wheeled away into U.N.C.L.E.'s in-house medical facility for further monitoring.

* * *

…_continued in Part 2…_


	2. Part 2: Acts I thru III

**The Waves of Change Affair  
(Part 2)  
**by LaH

_**December 24th, 2007  
Somewhere inside and outside the boundaries of sleep…**_

_She lay on her side, hunched her body close, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She was trying to make herself physically as small as possible, hoping that by blending as much as possible into her surroundings she would cease to feel so totally alone. Nothing was really different, was it? Papa had explained it all to her as he always had, explained that she had needed to undergo these interrogations so that those in Thrush could see all the evidence of his training of her. And he had told her in advance she wouldn't fare well during this last procedure._

_"I must not hide your weaknesses from them, Delphie," he had informed her as gently as he always had about things that could be categorized at the very least as unpleasant. "Your focus kept you centered during the beatings as I knew it would. I am quite proud of how you showed off your training there, my girl," he complimented her with an indulgent smile. "But drugs are entirely a different matter. Your body is now very accustomed to quickly and efficiently assimilating the effects of such, so you won't be able to resist any such effects and you'll break more easily than I would wish. Your means of concentration may be able to bring you out from under the influence of the truth drug sooner than expected, but that also means that coming around could prove quite physically violent."_

_Yet somehow, despite the forewarning, breaking so easily after so many years of training to maintain absolute self-control had still been intensely humiliating. She had stood up staunchly quiet and uncommunicative when being slapped and punched and slammed against walls, but it all seemed as nothing now. For once she had been injected with a veridical, her concentration had left her and she had become a talkative fool. And attempting to fight that utter lack of control with all her studied methods of centering had in the end only made her nerves tense in complete rebellion, her body going into wild convulsions._

_And now she lay here in a Thrush medical unit recovering physically, but mentally she was isolated within her sense of lack of individual worth. Trapped within a dark world of self-loathing that no one else could comprehend. Not even Papa._

_Just then she felt a caressing touch against the side of her neck. A mellow and memorable male voice questioned kindly, "How are you feeling?"_

_She turned slowly to look up into the face of Niles Ospreye. His expression was fond, protectively tender, and his eyes were warm._

_Papa had said that to insure this man's continued safeguarding of her she should go to his bed. That wouldn't be so difficult. He did seem somehow to account her as something uniquely precious, almost as if she would be a possession beyond price. And such possibility acted as healing balm upon her hurting heart._

_"I'll be fine," she responded in an uncertain voice._

_He smiled at her, a smile that somehow suggested he alone understood her always unexpressed desolation. With intense emotion all but utterly breaking his voice, he bid her, "Kom inn i armene mine, min søte prøveversjon."_  
_{Translation: Come into my arms, my sweet trial.}_

_And so she did…_

Body curled defensively tight in on itself, Delphina lay on her side on a bed in U.N.C.L.E.'s medical facility trying to come to terms with her most recent bout of self-deprecation stemming from her customary inability to withstand the influence of an injected drug. A truth drug of course. The only bit of good fortune in the event is that she had managed to alarm her "torturers" with the violent way her body had finally freed itself of that unwanted influence.

She felt a light touch against the side of her neck and heard a deep and distinctive male voice question kindly, "How are you feeling?"

With an involuntary start, Delphina turned to look up into the face of Napoleon Solo. His expression was concerned, thoughtfully sympathetic, and his eyes were warm.

She had led him blindly into a Thrush trap many years before and for all he knew she could be leading him into another now. After all, that wouldn't be so difficult. Yet he did seem to view her without prejudice, ready to give her every benefit of doubt. And such breathing space urged the giddiness of autonomy into her shackled soul.

"I'll be fine," answered Delphina, finding her throat suddenly very dry.

He smiled at her, a smile that somehow suggested he did so wish he could understand what drove her current actions and reactions. "If you are up to it then, Ms. Reikedahl," he proposed with gracious charm strongly resonant in his voice, "I'd like for you to come for a walk with me."

"Around the steel-lined corridors of U.N.C.L.E.'s HQ?" she asked, slowly but surely regaining her equilibrium with regard to time and place and heart and soul.

"Someplace much less confining," Solo assured her. "Hospital rooms are always so antiseptically stuffy; I thought you might appreciate a bit of fresh air to help you recover. So what I'm suggesting is a mutual foot-tour of Central Park."

Delphina gazed at him warily, but finally nodded her agreement.

_**

* * *

**_

**Act I: …then again perhaps not…**

For the chemical analysis to insure the composition of the gun oil, they would send one of their own people. It was too critical a task to be left in outside hands. Yet for the assessing of the quality of the armaments, a mercenary would do fine, as one had the previous two times out. Not the same mercenary of course; that could prove dangerous. Thrush did not seek for anyone outside their own organization to become too familiar with their activities. But a one-time-hire independent whose only concern was doing the job for cold hard cash was definitely the way to avoid unwelcome tracking of the whole procedure by U.N.C.L.E.

Niles Ospreye paused in his perusal of the report on the mercenary arms specialist Thrush was considering using for inspection of the last shipment of weaponry that would soon be delivered to them by the Russian Mafia. His thoughts during this small window of idle time centered on matters much more personal. He was distractedly missing the physical presence of his "søte prøveversjon".

Placing Delphina Reikedahl in the hands of U.N.C.L.E. had been a managerially necessitated but privately less-than-agreeable twist of fate. Delphina was his… How exactly to term the woman's place within his own regard was something that consistently eluded Ospreye. She was his mistress, but neither sexual antics nor romantic ideals were what accounted for his fascination with her; a fascination that had lasted three full decades in its current intimate form yet had begun five years before even that. His passion for her wasn't founded on lust or longing or love or anything so mundane. Instead it was based on a fixation with what she was, that being the result of technological experiments and intense training that had altered her physically and mentally in many more ways that could be seen externally. Delphina Reikedahl was totally unique, a one-of-a-kind Thrush invention who came courtesy of her own father's scientific research. She therefore fascinated him as no other being ever had or ever could.

Niles Ospreye was on the whole a rather pragmatic man. His rise within the echelons of the Thrush command structure was something for which he had purposely striven. Thus to facilitate that upward mobility within the shadow organization he had in general kept himself clear of what might be termed "emotional baggage". Having weaknesses that could be exploited made for such inefficient power mongering, and he had an intense distaste for inefficiency in any aspect of life. Yet from the initial time he laid eyes upon Delphina during his auditing for Thrush of Reikedahl's pet research project, his personal absorption with her had taken firm hold. She had been but twelve then, her skin tone already normalized by her father's biochemical trials from its previous albino lack of pigmentation, but her eyes still wrapped in bandages from the first of many operations she was to undergo regarding shifting their retinal configuration as Central demanded. White hair still fully displaying the vagaries of the physical condition of her birth, elegant long neck providing her a delicate and almost ethereal grace, what had ultimately struck the then twenty-five-year-old Thrush rising star about the young girl was her air of unshakeable calm.

From speaking with her, Ospreye grasped that, young as she was, Delphina was not at all unaware of the rumble of controversy that surrounded her within the framework of Thrush's hierarchy. It was not of course that Thrush had any primitive ethical scruples about utilizing a child in the experiments. It was just that what exactly might be accomplished by those experiments was being constantly debated amongst the various members of the Supreme Council. The entirety of that Council was decidedly in favor of anything that might grant Thrush some sort of control over U.N.C.L.E.'s Napoleon Solo when he eventually gained Waverly's chair as a policymaker in that pesky organization. However what this particular research might eventually afford as tangible results in that regard remained rather sketchy.

Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl had scientific vision, but he also had a kind of technical castle-in-the-sky philosophy that to most bordered on the stuff of sheer science fiction. His intense preoccupation with synaptic research made most scratch their heads in bewilderment. Yet Ospreye watched the scientist as he put his daughter through an elaborate series of exercises in the gaining and maintaining of almost superhuman concentration, and he had recognized the doctor's plan was not based solely on biochemical, bioelectric and bio-magnetic alterations. That his method combined what could be done to the body by science with what the mind could be taught in support of those physical manipulations. And Ospreye was astute enough to appreciate that at least the second part of the scientist's method would likely garner significant results even if the first part failed miserably.

He thus had championed Reikedahl's cause with Central and eventually, when it seemed the Supreme Council was tiring of the expense and slow pace of the scientist's pet project and began to makes noises about disposing of the "guinea pig" in favor of getting on with research with more quickly quantifiable results, Ospreye stepped into the guise of protector for the then teenage girl. He ventured that it did no harm to keep her around as possible insurance for the future, as long as Reikedahl continued to provide valuable technological services in other areas to which Thrush assigned him, even as Reikedahl himself forwarded his daughter in ways categorically intended to make Ospreye aware she would be more than willing to become his personal prize. In the end, Central conceded the girl's continued existence and her father's continued experimentation with her, as long as the scientist kept that subservient to his other projects. And Ospreye gained himself a bedmate whose appeal for him was so beyond the ordinary that he just could not get enough of her. In thirty years he still hadn't.

His own meteoric rise within the ranks of Thrush had assured Delphina's survival. And though some within those ranks did "tut-tut" at what they tactlessly called his unrepressed obsession, Ospreye's efficiency in all other facets of his association with the Hierarchy wound up providing him an unassailable pass with regard to that one personal quirk. None dared question him on it now, now that he had a firm position on the Thrush Council and all the brute power that came with such a position. Of course he was also sufficiently circumspect never to have paraded Delphina openly and thus make his undeniable fixation with her an obvious Achilles' heel duly noted by outside enemies. In fact, he prided himself that – until her purposeful thrust into U.N.C.L.E.'s arms – not one of his enemies was even cognizant of her existence in his life.

"Possibilities pleasantly perfume the air," he muttered to himself with a lopsided grin. It was one of his pet expressions and one that all those within Thrush understood well as referencing a truly spectacular turn of an ingenious mind with regard to some particularly confidential activities.

With a soft sign of resignation at Delphina's enforced absence followed hard upon by a small smile of satisfaction at the potential outcome of such absence, Ospreye returned his immediate attention to the file displayed on the screen of the laptop in front of him.

"Nikolaevna Anuchin," Ospreye repeated the name aloud, rolling the Russianness of it on his tongue as his mind ruminated on all he had read. "Well, she seems competent enough and certainly comes highly recommended," he furthered his thoughts into speech. "Little young maybe," he noted with a bemused smirk for in truth, now that he inhabited his sixth decade, most of those around him seemed a little young. "But then in hired help there is some advantage to a bit of inexperience in dealing with intrigue. Makes it less likely she will have the worldly wherewithal to seek out anything she shouldn't."

With a grand flourish of his fingertips upon the compact keyboard, Niles Ospreye, Thrush Supreme Council member, sent the coded email providing Gennadiy Yunusov with Central's endorsement of the young female mercenary named Nikolaevna Anuchin in the position of arms assessor with regard to the final weapons shipment being made out of Moscow into New York.

* * *

Though technically it wasn't part of his job and though some indeed wondered why the second-in-command of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E. liked to keep his hands in on such trivial technicalities, briefing agents on the new aspects of devices for use in their field arsenals was a task Illya Kuryakin enthusiastically enjoyed. In some ways, now that age unequivocally bound him into the role of desk jockey, it made him feel closer to those operatives who were the lifeblood of the organization. He made an invariable habit of denying it if pressed, yet like Napoleon his heart would forever be in the field. Unfortunately time makes no exceptions for emotional preferences, and thus even adrenaline junkies like himself and Solo inevitably lost the most potent source of their fix.

Today, however, Illya was vicariously reveling in the field possibilities provided by the new pen communicator as he explained and demonstrated the improved version of the device to the six agents who comprised the core of the infiltration team for the Russian Arms Affair.

"As on the previous model you have been testing for some months," the Section III Chief began, "the clip of the pen-unit has seven positions, each for use with a specific communications channel. All channels are scrambled.

"First position: Fully private, for communication individual agent to individual agent in the field.

"Second position:" went on Kuryakin as he rotated the clip until there was a barely audible click, "Semi private, for communications between all agents part of a specific field team.

"Third position: Field local, for communication between all agents part of associated field teams working on different aspects of the same mission."

Illya rotated the clip to the fourth position with another click.

"Fourth position: Local exclusive," he specified, "for communication between local command and individual agent.

"Fifth position: Local inclusive, for communication between local command and all field teams working on the same mission."

Another click sounded as the Section III head rotated the clip yet again.

"Sixth position: Relay exclusive, for communication between home-base command, even when such requires an overseas connection, and individual agent.

"Seventh position: Relay inclusive," Illya rotated the clip into the final channel point with another click, "for communication between home-base command, again even when requiring an overseas connection, and all field teams working on the same mission.

"Also as on the previous model," Kuryakin stated matter-of-factly as he pointed out the involved parts, "buttons, purportedly for color changes of ink, each activate a specific function of the apparatus, five now as opposed to the previous four.

"Black," he went on as he flicked that particular button, "activates an audio communications channel with both send and receive modes. The plunger at the top of the pen conceals the microphone."

Click sounded the plunger under Illya's finger as he noted, "Depress into the down position to open the channel. Depress again," the next words came audibly highlighted by another definitive click, "to the up position to close the channel."

The four men and two women of the Section II contingent kept silent though this portion of the recitation. These particulars of the communicator's workings were already familiar to them, as they hadn't changed from the last test model.

"The blue button activates a still image transmission channel, both send and receive," Illya went on with the full specifications. "Lens, used for camera send and projection receipt, is located on the clip bar of the apparatus," he tapped that area in visual demonstration. "The transmission is sent/received as a holographic three-dimensional image," he furthered as he projected into the room the image of the lab that a research assistant obligingly sent through, the twelve-inch square hologram vividly suspended in the air near the Section Chief's communicator. "Size of the image can be adjusted by waving the pen downward to decrease, with a minimum size of 2.5 centimeters square, and upward to increase, with a maximum size of 125 centimeters square," Illya noted as he gestured with the pen appropriately to exhibit these parameters. "Again, plunger down to open the channel; plunger up to close," he finalized as he clicked away the projection into nothingness. "You may also receive static maps in this way."

Several of the Section II agents nodded as the distinctive click/click sounded again.

"The green button activates a video transmission channel, send and receive," Kuryakin continued. "It can be depressed in tandem with the black to send or receive a full video/audio holographic transmission." He readily displayed a live feed from the same lab assistant, who obligingly waved and offered a 'Hello' to validate the vocal transmission. "Same routine for size adjustment and…" click/click – Illya's finger easily closed off the show, "for opening and closing the channel. "Fully functional navigation maps can also be received and utilized through this method."

"The red button activates the bio-magnetic field necessary for you to be monitored by the bio-drone relay. Send only mode, but better than any standard homing device. Same on/off procedure…" click/click "…as the other pen functions."

The Section II agents waited expectantly. All that had been demonstrated thus far was already known to them, but the next was the new bit and they were eager to hear what it might be.

"And now for the pièce de résistance," concluded Kuryakin with just the barest hint of a smile playing about the corners of his mouth. "The purple button activates a short-range bio-magnetic field that can be directed at a small target area for a spurt of two minutes. That signal is then bounced to the bio-drone relay and fed back to the apparatus with the result that, when encountering a human bio-magnetic pulse, the pen will emit an electronic buzz." Pointing the instrument toward his daughter where she sat amongst the Section II contingent, Illya pushed down the plunger to activate the function and the pen came to life with a responding idiosyncratic buzz. He then depressed the plunger so that it retracted to the up position and the buzzing ceased. "Of course it won't tell you whether the person detected is part of the library of stored bio-magnetic profiles of U.N.C.L.E. personnel or just a random individual. We're working on that capability via the use of two sets of tones, but for now there is this."

"I'm not sure I see the use exactly," forwarded Dutch agent Alfred van Niels.

"It effectively neutralizes much of the usefulness of Thrush's light manipulation suit," stated Jack Valdar certainly.

"Exactly, Mr. Valdar," affirmed Kuryakin. "From testing we discovered that the suit does not fool the bio-drone as it does the human eye or even a camera lens. Bio-magnetics are not bound by the properties of light. So, while I admit it would be slow going to use this to detect everyplace a suit-wearing Thrush might be hiding within a confined space, and certainly it would be even less useful fully out-in-the-open, it nevertheless provides a modicum of defensive identification ability under such circumstances."

"Cielo concede misericordia," Pedro Arquas noted with a huge grin. "We will gladly take any such abilities we can get."  
{Translation: Heaven grants mercy.}

"Amen to that, Pedro," agreed his partner, Linda Beckstein.

"A Geiger counter for invisible Thrushies," remarked Natasha with a receptive grin. "Science does advance in leaps and bounds."

"Yes, but unfortunately oftentimes in leaps and bounds that skirt ethical boundaries," commented her father coolly.

"Like in that sassy bit of Thrush technological fluff we have in a holding cell currently," Agent Kyle Walters casually expounded as he stretched languidly.

"She's still recovering in medical, isn't she?" questioned Natasha with a barely suppressed shudder. Her sight of the Thrush going into violent convulsions as she fought off the U.N.C.L.E. truth serum was still vivid in her memory.

"Apparently, greenstick, she's recovered enough to keep the Number 1 of Section 1 company during a stroll through Central Park," Jack almost snickered as he provided Delphina Reikedahl's accurate location at the moment.

Illya Kuryakin turned to the CEA. "What did you say, Mr. Valdar?"

"Just that the erstwhile prisoner is currently taking a turn about Central Park with Mr. Solo," reiterated Valdar. "I was asked by Section V this morning to assign a couple of Section II agents to complement the detail on the junket. Since this is essentially a personal excursion, Mr. Solo was rather put out by that. But I finally did manage to convince him that Ed Lein, capable though he is, and another Section V security type as backup weren't going to be sufficient safeguarding in that specific situation. And frankly Section V just didn't want sole responsibility in this case as it could prove far too easy for Thrush to take down the Continental Chief in an open area the size of Central Park. We also have no clue if the Reikedahl woman might not somehow assist in such an event. Thus the outing is being treated security-wise as an official junket requiring a full four-man team: two agents from Section II and two from Section V."

Illya ran a hand distractedly though his hair. What the hell was Napoleon thinking now? And why hadn't he been advised about this? Napoleon surely realized that his coming into direct contact with the Reikedahl woman could be extremely risky. That what had been learned during the interrogation yesterday suggested she was in some way connecting her nervous system into Solo's. Granted, it still made little sense, but Illya didn't believe in gambling unnecessarily. And here his friend had just up and gone for his own version of an adrenaline hit by diving headlong into what could be a deadly dangerous situation. Typical Napoleon: still as reckless and over-confident as he had been forty years ago.

"Demonstration complete, Mr. Kuryakin?" Valdar queried of the older man after the Section II personnel had waited about five minutes for the expected dismissal from the Section III chief.

"Oh yes, Mr. Valdar," nodded Illya, letting his thoughts come back to the moment at hand. "Each of you is to take one of the new communicators and make yourself fully familiar with it."

Each agent picked up a communicator pen from an open box on the table and then made his or her way out of the conference room through the pneumatic door. Natasha, however, lingered behind.

"Dad?" she addressed her father tentatively after the others had exited. "May I talk to you about something?"

"Uhm?" was all the response Illya made, his mind obviously still preoccupied.

Natasha smiled.

"Dyadya always does have that incredible luck of his to cover his back, Dad," she pointed out, comprehending only too well where her father's mental attention was currently focused.

"Luck," repeated Illya scornfully. "You know, Natasha, though the hallowed legend stubbornly persists, it was never really luck, not entirely anyhow. Napoleon always had a kind of sixth sense about things, and he was never afraid to indulge that."

"Instinct and intuition," agreed Natasha with a nod, "and of course having you as his backup never exactly hurt either."

Illya gave his daughter a little smile. "Just as me having him as my backup never exactly hurt. We were a good field team."

"You two were the best field team U.N.C.L.E. ever had," Natasha spoke bluntly, "which relates directly to what I want to talk to you about."

"Having trouble with your partner?" guessed Illya.

"Jack is…" Natasha paused, seeking neutral words. "Difficult to get along with," she settled on the most simplistic way of expressing the facts.

"Mr. Valdar is an excellent field operative," stated Illya straightforwardly.

Natasha sighed.

"Oh, I know that. It's just he's so… aggravating."

Illya chuckled.

"To the independent people who tend to be field agents," he revealed plainly, "a partner often is so, until you get to know him… or her. I suspect, Natasha, Mr. Valdar finds you equally as aggravating."

Natasha's facial expression gave evidence of her surprise at her father's statement.

"I am not aggravating!" she countered. "I'm funny…"

"And I suspect Mr. Valdar's wit is rather different than yours and that neither of you yet appreciates what the other offers as humor," insinuated Illya.

"And I'm smart…" persisted Natasha.

"Are you suggesting Mr. Valdar isn't?" her father batted back with a little smirk.

"No! but…" Natasha huffed, "He's condescending! He constantly refers to me as 'greenstick'!"

"Aren't you that?" pressed Illya in a nonetheless teasing tone.

"And he doesn't even talk to me as if I am human being with feelings!" came Natasha's next protest.

"Maybe because you don't talk to him as one," ventured her father.

Natasha sighed heavily. "Dad, you're supposed to be on my side!"

Illya laughed, but very soothingly, not in any way that could be construed as making light of her very real concerns.

"Moyo novoye serdce," he assured his daughter, "I will always be on your side. And it may well be that Jack Valdar is honestly not a good match as a field partner for you. But I have to tell you outright that you haven't yet given the partnership much of a chance. And you are the more outgoing of the pairing, Natasha, so I'm afraid it must fall to you to make the initial push toward forging a workable bond with Mr. Valdar. Reticence of nature is a kind of social chain that needs reconfiguring to mesh with the links of others. Napoleon made the first move into my sphere of personal restraints, you know, and it's something for which I will be forever grateful."  
{Translation: My renewed heart}

"Dyadya in full charm mode could never be brushed aside even by the most determined of dour Soviets," now it was Natasha's turn to rib.

"And neither can you in that mode, my girl," complimented Illya as he chucked his daughter fondly under the chin. "You have your Dyadya's full arsenal there. No clue how it was passed onto you, but somehow it was."

"Osmosis," intimated Natasha with a playful wink, "the very scientific result of you letting him around me so much as a child."

"I wouldn't doubt it," agreed Illya readily.

And, with almost as telltale a mental click/click as the audible one produced by the pushing in and out of the plunger on the new style communicator, Illya for the moment forgot the problem presented by his partner's headstrong tendencies and basked in the memories of that friend's long-ago extending of goodwill that had in time led to fast friendship and total trust. Trust maybe he would do well to let take the forefront now with regard to Napoleon's spontaneous handling of Delphina Reikedahl.

* * *

Delphina breathed deeply of the cold winter air. It felt so good to fill her lungs with oxygen unprocessed through the filtering system of U.N.C.L.E.'s New York headquarters. And Central Park in its light blanket of snow was a welcome sight to eyes that had become too accustomed to sterile steel enclosures. The feel of the wool sweater and slacks she had been supplied for this outing were warm and inviting, as was the plush coat. And she would never have previously thought having her feet once again protected within leather could have seemed such decadence. Yet, though she was extremely grateful for this respite from claustrophobic indoor spaces, the standard prisoner black jumpsuit and constantly bare feet, she had no doubt it would come at a price. Napoleon Solo obviously wanted to speak with her outside the confines of U.N.C.L.E.'s tight security and routine monitoring.

After some time spent in silence as the two of them simply walked about the park, Solo's ubiquitous security contingent trailing some yards behind them, the Thrush decided to get right to the heart of the matter.

"Is there something you want to ask me, Mr. Solo?"

"Napoleon," the Continental Chief corrected her. "And maybe I just wanted the pleasure of an attractive woman's company during my walk."

She stopped her stride, causing him to halt as well, as she turned to face him directly.

"While I do realize such would indeed suit your overall character, Napoleon," she used his given name without hesitation but with a certain casual élan, "I honestly doubt that is what prompted this invitation to me today."

"That obvious, huh?" inferred Napoleon with one of his infectious smiles.

"Only because you want it to be that obvious," challenged Delphina knowingly.

Napoleon didn't bother to deny or belabor this point.

"Delphina…" he began. "May I call you Delphina?" he delayed his more meaningful response by politely requesting permission for a first-name intimacy to exist on both sides of the interaction between them.

The Thrush waved one hand in relaxed acceptance of that intimacy. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," she spoke with a lopsided grin.

"Well then, Delphina," Napoleon recommenced both talking and strolling, "I thought away from the atmosphere of security holding cells and interrogation rooms, you might be inclined to talk a little more freely."

"About what in particular, Napoleon?" she paced his words and his steps.

"You claim you are the mistress of Niles Ospreye."

"For thirty years," she affirmed straightforwardly.

"And you also claim yourself to be his 'obsession' – your own word," stressed Solo as he watched her mouth set in an unyielding line, "for those same thirty years."

"If you are seeking some secret insight into Niles' mind or soul," warned Delphina bluntly, "I'll not provide you that."

"You already have provided that," batted back Napoleon somewhat smugly, "simply by revealing he has an obsession."

"While under the influence of that damnable U.N.C.L.E. veridical," countered the Thrush with definite bitterness. "Perhaps it was no more than a ruse on my part to reveal such."

"Perhaps," allowed Napoleon, "but then again perhaps not."

They walked on in verbal silence for several minutes, the icy coating of snow on the faded yellowish grass crunching noisily under their feet furnishing the only sound.

"What do you want me to say, Napoleon?" Delphina at last inquired in frustration.

"I'm not sure, Delphina," divulged Solo.

Delphina stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face the man at her side once more as he halted his own forward movement at this cue.

"Do you want me to protest that I am some sort of innocent who is being tactlessly manipulated by Niles?"

"Are you some sort of innocent who is being tactlessly manipulated, either personally by Ospreye or more generally by Thrush?" Napoleon asked plainly.

"No," she gave her answer, short and to the point.

Solo audibly sighed.

"Then this is going to be more difficult than I had hoped," he conceded.

"I would say that I'm sorry for making it more difficult but, after what happened yesterday, it would only be a lie."

"Whereas before yesterday it would have been something other than a lie?" Napoleon tested.

Delphina silently resumed walking, Solo matching her stride for stride, as did the coterie of security following at a discreet distance.

"Doesn't that trailing posse play havoc with your social life?" Delphina now quizzed Napoleon as she indicated with a movement of her head the four-man security detail stalking in their wake.

Solo laughed. "There was a time," he responded glibly. "Inconvenient safety measures come with the territory however, and usually it's just one bodyguard yapping anxiously at my heels."

"Should I be flattered that U.N.C.L.E. deemed me enough of a threat to increase your security while you are in my company?" she quipped, a slightly mocking smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"That depends," Solo noted. Then indicating with a subtle sweeping gesture of his hand several men standing at various points around them, not too close but not too distant either, he quipped back, "Should I be flattered so many birdwatchers came out to spy on our little walk?"

Delphina smirked as she reminded him, "You are the first among equals of the five top men in U.N.C.L.E."

"But it is you who is the supposed obsession of a high-ranking member of the Thrush Central Council," Napoleon reminded her in turn.

"Then I'll let you ascertain the answer to your question for yourself, Napoleon," Delphina demurred. "I will disclose, however, that Niles will be less than pleased any such potential avian observers were espied so readily."

"Then I imagine they are to be pitied," hazarded Napoleon, "for we'll insure he finds out soon enough.

"Shall we sit?" he then suggested as he indicated a nearby park bench with a wave of his hand.

"If you like," agreed Delphina.

They walked on shoulder-to-shoulder toward the bench. Once they had reached it, Solo gallantly brushed the thin coating of snow off the surface with one gloved hand and made another sweeping hand-gesture signifying the Thrush was to be seated before he was himself. Delphina sat, smiling an amused smile as she did so.

"Always the gentleman."

"Not always," countered Napoleon with a smile of his own as he took a seat beside her on the bench.

"Is that a warning regarding the nature of any questions to come?" goaded Delphina wryly.

"Rather a warning never to take anything solely at face value," Napoleon rejoined gamely. "Or are you going to tell me you have always trusted in the kindness of strangers?" he pointedly paraphrased Tennessee Williams' created character of Blanche DuBois.

The amused smile stretched her lips once more.

"You are hardly what I would call a stranger, Napoleon."

For the first time during this conversation, Solo found himself less than fully at ease.

"About that…" he began.

"You want to know if I truly gained sensory knowledge, shall we call it, by somehow using my amplified synaptic impulses to reach and connect to yours," she forwarded his query in much more succinct terms than he could have managed."

"Yes, I want to know that," he acknowledged.

"And yes, I did that," she guaranteed him. "I won't elaborate further."

"Not the answer I wanted to hear," admitted Napoleon with a concerned puckering of his brow.

"Because it lessens your perceptions of personal autonomy?" guessed Delphina.

"No, because it makes me something of a threat to U.N.C.L.E.," he matter-of-factly informed her how off the mark had been her conjecture.

"Ah, but it doesn't," corrected Delphina nonchalantly. "It makes **me** something of a threat to U.N.C.L.E. But you and your entire organization have already been assuming that. So this revelation changes nothing."

She reached up with one hand – a bare hand, Napoleon suddenly noted, though she had been given gloves – and gently brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek.

"I will do nothing to permanently damage you, Napoleon," she pledged in a soft voice. "Thus could I never make you a traitor to your own."

Her skin against his sent actual physical frissons of energy through his body, almost like an intense form of static electricity hitting directly upon unexpectedly exposed nerve endings. The unusual but not strictly unpleasant shudderings widened his eyes in stunned cognizance.

"You're doing it now," he challenged her, "connecting."

"Once it was initiated, that connection gained more of a life of its own than even I anticipated," she confided to him frankly. "I can control it when there is no physical contact between us; yet when we touch I have no such governance over the connection."

Solo deliberately grasped her hand in his own, moving that hand of hers from his face, and finally laying her hand in her lap as he released his own grip.

"You are afraid of this connection, Napoleon?"

"I am justly wary of it, Delphina."

"Mr. Kuryakin will be pleased by this new wariness," she teased him as she briefly brushed back his hair, purposely letting her fingertips lightly graze his scalp.

Her touch was no more than momentary, just long enough for Solo to register those undeniably electric quavers in his nerves once more.

"You do that to demonstrate your power?" baited Napoleon through hooded eyes.

"I do that because I am intrigued by this power, as you call it," Delphina confessed. "Long did my father logically speculate on this result of his experiments, but he was never able to fully test and analyze his theories. Thus I have never before actually experienced this connection either, Napoleon, and it fascinates me. Human beings are such uniquely self-contained creatures. Everything we are physically is held tightly bound within the sphere of an individual body. But now suddenly between you and me there is this shared sphere of sensory abilities that is equally part of both our bodies. Don't you find that somehow humbling?"

"It is hardly equally shared," Napoleon disputed her supposition. "It seems in fact very one-sided from where I sit; with you able to gain access to my sensory pathways and me only physically aware of you doing so."

"Is that really true, Napoleon?" Delphina verbally probed his mind as she leaned in and quite boldly let her lips physically probe the rim and lobe of his left ear.

With a start, Solo realized that it wasn't really true. When she had been under the influence of the truth serum, hadn't his body responded to her senses fighting to free her body from the drug?

"When you were being interrogated yesterday…" Solo started to voice his abruptly churning thoughts.

"Yes?" encouraged Delphina as she trailed cool fingers along the nape of his neck. She desperately wanted to hear what he had to say in this regard. His reactions, whatever they might have been, would serve as important data needed to document the full scope of her father's theories.

"I…" commenced Napoleon. "The dizziness; the numbness; the intense migraine:" he continued in a strained voice, "You're telling me those were… consequences of this connection?"

"I'm not 'telling' you anything," she advised easily as her brain catalogued his words and her fingers curled languidly around the side of his neck. "It is all still experimental, after all."

Solo grabbed her hand from his neck and held it firmly in both of his.

"This is all about finishing those clinical trials on your father's research?" he demanded.

"Yes," she replied without any hesitation.

"For which my proximity is definitely required?" postulated Napoleon, though of course this was already more than speculation.

"Yes," again Delphina's response was direct.

Solo's heart was thumping wildly in his chest as adrenaline rushed in waves through him. Here was excitement and danger once more. Here was being part of the world of action again. Here was not sitting behind a desk but pondering and controlling. Here was… being.

He jumped to his feet, uncertain how to contain that surge of adrenaline; even more uncertain he wanted to contain it. Illya had cautioned him long ago about this persistent quirk in his personality, told him in no uncertain terms his penchant for 'socially engaging' the enemy under the exhilarating influence of personal jeopardy could so easily prove his undoing. Angelique, Serena, scores of others over the years: yet from all of those encounters he had won more than he had ever lost, hadn't he? And truthfully, though as opponents he and they had always acknowledged one another as intrinsically dangerous, he had liked them in some ways and he was sure they had liked him in some ways as well. Just as he found he liked Delphina Reikedahl, disconcerting though she undeniably was. So, though he would concede Illya's point that such 'social engagement' was an exceedingly perilous way to 'cross swords' with an adversary, it was nonetheless for him a tried and true technique, part of his intelligence-seeking arsenal, and a method at which he excelled.

Delphina eyed his back-turned figure with a knowing smile.

"And now you are intrigued too," she concluded calculatingly.

He turned quickly to face her once more.

"I can't afford to be," he made his pronouncement sound extremely certain. He needed to draw her out, to play out the conversation.

"You can't afford not to be," Delphina countermanded, understanding the wile and not above using a particular one from her own arsenal. "You can't afford for Thrush to understand some process you do not. You can't afford for your enemies to have such secrets. Especially now that you know U.N.C.L.E. secrets you thought forever secure from Thrush access have never been so."

Napoleon squinted hard at her.

"Should I know to what you are referring?" he hedged.

"Did U.N.C.L.E. ever truly believe they could keep under the guise of 'need-to-know' wraps information about aspects of your past that bridge a certain gap of years in your public association with the organization?" she forwarded calmly. "All it took was meticulous record-keepers to uncover that subterfuge."

Napoleon stiffened his stance.

"I still don't know what you're talking about," he insisted.

"If it makes you uncomfortable to admit the truth, I surely understand," granted Delphina with a careless shrug. "After all, it must be disquieting to have to concede that your best friend isn't one who is accounted as part of that 'need to know' minority within your organization. A shame really," she finalized with a hint of implication in her tone, "since he would be the most likely to commiserate on past unpleasantness of that sort."

"I don't bother with letting any unchangeable details, if such do exist, prove disquieting," forwarded Napoleon. "I hold to the philosophy of life that best summarizes as: Abandon what is bad from the past, relish what is good, and always live in the moment."

"And I am handing you now just such a chance to live in the moment, Napoleon," she pressed.

"By participating in your 'making an end', as you noted that first night in my office, to your father's experiments?" he queried, his all-inclusive self-confidence re-emerging with noticeable buoyancy. No Thrush had ever or was ever going to best him in a contest of words or wills.

Her eyes surveyed him closely. Yes, he was definitely a being with a core of steel as inflexible as her own. But that mattered little. Her father had taught her there were ways and means to achieve everything. She had never doubted his wisdom in anything, and she did not doubt that wisdom now. True, it would be easier if she didn't so much like this Napoleon Solo, but she could deal with that. She wasn't going to do him any permanent injury, after all.

"I will make an end in any case," she guaranteed stubbornly.

"Without my cooperation?" he challenged. "How do you intend to do that? Or do you think you can manage me by some form of coercion?" he pursued with an amused grin at the very arrogant absurdity of any such assumption on her part.

"I will make an end however I can," was the only answer she would give this particular query.

Napoleon squinted at Delphina, mentally assessing the full breadth of her determination in this. He accounted that determination genuine, credited absolutely that somehow completing her father's experiments was the main, if not the only, force driving her. However, despite whatever Delphina might believe honestly or otherwise, Solo did not believe in the least that Thrush had no more pertinent motive in this venture. Ospreye was a master of guile. It was thus perfectly plausible Delphina was sufficiently gullible not to pinpoint the possibility the Thrush Council member might be slyly using her iron determination in his own design. It was just as plausible, however, to account Delphina fully aware of any possible stratagem on Ospreye's part that went far beyond merely forwarding the completion of the experiments of the decade-dead Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl, and that piggybacking that Thrush plan onto her own desires was perfectly agreeable to her.

"And how does Niles Ospreye intend to make an end?" Napoleon, therefore, posed the most loaded question with far more steel than silk in his tone.

Delphina's eyes, so much like Solo's, hooded in retreat.

"However I manage it," she noted with a hard edge in her own voice.

"He trusts in you that much?" submitted Napoleon suspiciously.

"He trusts in the science that much," advanced the Thrush.

Solo set his eyes unwaveringly on hers.

"He must account it very potent science then," he drawled with cool nonchalance, some inner part of him still hoping she might yet grasp the rash artlessness of her viewpoint, "since he deigned to let you reveal a valuable new Thrush device to U.N.C.L.E. in the form of the light manipulation suit just to get you situated in that proximity to me this supposed science mandated. Or maybe that was just his obsession getting the better of his judgment?"

"How valuable can any device be to Thrush when U.N.C.L.E. already possesses the means to neutralize it?" she countered perhaps thoughtlessly. Yet then again perhaps there was method to her seeming thoughtlessness.

Inwardly Napoleon smiled. Delphina was intelligent and cunning… and quite willing to participate in the thrust and counter-thrust of this inimitable style of crossing swords. Socially engaging the enemy did indeed provoke tantalizing parries, even if it was always an addictively risky gamble. Illya had never quite understood that.

"As to this science, it is very potent indeed." Delphina continued with deliberate and careful enunciation of every word as if she was picking only the choicest of fruit from a generously filled basket. "Potent, lacking grace, and requiring sacrifices," she intimated that she more than expected Solo to come personally, even if unwillingly, to full comprehension of this truth.

"I won't make sacrifices in the interests of Thrush science, Delphina," he told her quite ingenuously.

"I do realize that, Napoleon," she assured him in a resigned voice as she rose to her feet to stand near him. "But the real question is:" she furthered in a much more speculative tone, "What sacrifices will you make in the interests of U.N.C.L.E.'s science?"

She let that question hang in the air between them as Ed Lein, Solo's bodyguard, came up to the side of the Continental Chief and advised him it was more than time to return to headquarters.

* * *

"Thrush is after the bio-drone, Illya," stated Napoleon certainly to his friend as they sat within the security of the Continental Chief's office in U.N.C.L.E.'s New York headquarters. "Whether to steal it, sabotage it, or simply destroy it, I can't say. Yet that the bio-drone is somehow the ultimate goal in all this, that I can say without doubt."

"It makes sense," Illya conceded. "After all, the bio-drone makes their light manipulation suit semi-useless."

Solo nodded his agreement with that statement.

"And the woman," forwarded Kuryakin, "she is the one intended to implement whatever plan regarding the bio-drone Thrush has concocted?"

"She has her own motives, Illya," Napoleon put forth without hesitation or reservation. "Those motives might just be providing a cover for Thrush. Yet they are central enough in her mind for her to either pragmatically adhere to any other open agenda operating in tandem with her own or unrealistically not be troubled by any other closed agenda running behind hers. Which one of those scenarios is the true one is something I can't be certain about either… at least not yet."

Illya squinted pointedly at his friend.

"Socially engaging the enemy again, Napoleon?" he inquired of the other man with definite censure in his tone.

Napoleon smiled one of those infectious smiles of his.

"Scold me later, Illya," he advised his one-time partner nonchalantly. "Right now just back me up in using whatever method works to get all the answers we need. All right?"

Kuryakin let out an exasperated sigh.

"I don't suppose I have much choice," Illya declared somewhat sullenly.

"This is all still a bit hazy," Solo forwarded. "There are a lot of blurred edges that have to be sharpened before we can determine exactly what action to take."

"Some of those blurred edges encompassing rather surprising outlines," noted Kuryakin in turn. "Such as the fullness of U.N.C.L.E. information currently stored in Thrush archives by their meticulous record-keepers," he meaningfully probed.

Napoleon's hazel-brown gaze met and held Illya's ice-blue one.

"Let that be, Illya," he plainly but undemandingly commanded.

Illya's eyes held those of his friend a moment longer, and then he pointedly dropped his own gaze.

"You're the Number 1 in Section I," he acquiesced.

But the scrupulous wording of that acquiescence made Solo distinctly disquiet.

"I'll see about instating further security measures around the bio-drone," Kuryakin finalized as he rose from his seat.

"Thanks, Illya," Napoleon gave his gratitude voice, his tone indicating that such gratitude encompassed something beyond Kuryakin's efficiency in overseeing the protection of the bio-drone.

Illya simply nodded and made his way out the pneumatic door.

After his exit, Solo summoned his assistant into his office.

"Jenny," he instructed straightforwardly, "I want you to make immediate arrangements for a Summit Five conference call."

"A Summit Five?" gawked Jenny with wide eyes.

Any conference involving all five chief policymakers of U.N.C.L.E. – whether done in person, by computer, or most simply by phone – was a huge undertaking. Security had to be faultless. When done in person there were travel and location considerations. When done via computer or phone there were unique encryption codes that had to be created and applied. All-in-all it was not an easy thing to accomplish and generally took weeks of planning.

"Yes, Jenny," affirmed Solo, "and I want it done ASAP. By next week if possible."

"Sir, I will try my best," Jenny assured her boss, "but to coordinate it all in no more than a week…" Her voice trailed off as the enormity of the task hit home with her.

Solo gave the young woman one of his most charismatic smiles.

"I know you'll do your utmost to make it happen, Jenny," he encouraged her warmly.

"Yes sir," acknowledged Jenny with a responding smile, subconsciously preening under the confidence in her abilities implied in the words of the top policymaker of U.N.C.L.E. Thus did she let the inimitable charm of the Continental Chief of the North American division lull her into full compliance without further complaint.

* * *

Jack shifted his shoulders in a subtle attempt to get comfortable once more in his own clothes. Without the underpinning of the familiar clasp of his shoulder holster and the accustomed weight of his U.N.C.L.E. Special, his suit jacket seemed a trifle too loose a fit. Yet a visitor didn't take a weapon of any kind within the precincts of a secure holding cell, and that was how he was going into such a place at the moment. Not as an on-duty operative, but merely as a private individual making a personal visit to a prisoner. His outfit pointedly excluded all of the hidden devices part of an Enforcement Agent's standard kit. He was going in naked, so to speak, and that idea was something that made him edgy.

The CEA, a man who would not abide skirting the rules, had made a special appointment with the Continental Chief of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E. just hours after yesterday's incident in Interrogation Room 4. He had related to his superior at that meeting all that had been said between himself and the Thrush agent, in no way sparing himself righteous self-censure for his own carelessness during that conversation. But Solo hadn't been overly concerned with that carelessness, or with chastising Jack for it. What had interested the Number 1 in Section I had been Delphina's reaction to Valdar's mentioning of the bio-drone, and her unexpected proposition to the Number 1 in Section 2.

"Take her up on the offer, Jack," Solo had charged his subordinate.

"Sir?" Jack had questioned, somewhat confused by this tack.

"Take the bait and then tangle the fisherman – or in this case the fisherwoman – in her own line when she makes her final attempt to fully reel you in," had clarified Solo.

And so that order had brought Jack here to the private holding cell complex, when he was supposedly off-duty, now about to ask Delphina Reikedahl to "teach" him whatever it was she had hinted at during that previous exchange between them in the interrogation room.

As he stood just outside her cell, Delphina lifted questioning eyes to his. He said nothing, merely took one observable deep breath, punched in the key code on the control pad that secured the electronic lock on the steel-ribbed sliding panel of the Plexiglas-fronted cell and walked inside, the panel sliding shut automatically behind him.

"U.N.C.L.E.'s CEA is thought a necessary security measure to escort me to my next interrogation session?" the Thrush guessed somewhat flippantly.

"No, I am here quite unofficially," clarified Jack.

"Oh?" Delphina inquired of him with a raised eyebrow.

"You offered to teach me your means of sleight of hand."

"As I recall, I offered to teach 'stealthy feats of dexterity'," she reminded him purposely, "and such encompass much more than mere sleight of hand."

Jack flushed, which made the Thrush laugh.

"Do not be anxious, Mr. Valdar," she soothed him with some amusement. "I am not seeking to compromise your virtue. I prefer maturity to at least match my own in men in whom I take that particular kind of interest. But am I to assume by this non-perfunctory visit that you wish to take me up on my actual offer?"

"Yes," responded Jack monosyllabically.

"Strictly your own decision?" she taunted with a knowing smile. "Or prompted by Mr. Solo?"

Jack was silent.

"I wonder how many people bother to look beyond Napoleon's insouciant charm to gaze fully upon the considered shrewdness beneath," Delphina commented with a little shake of her head.

Now it was Jack who smiled, but there was wryness in that smile.

"Few to none I would imagine," he spoke certainly.

Delphina's hazel-brown eyes met Jack's steel-gray ones for a long moment and in that moment an understanding passed between them.

"It is of no real import," noted Delphina with a shrug, "whether your superior 'suggested' you accept my proposition or whether you determined to do so entirely on your own. Either way I am pleased you have so accepted, for there is much I can teach you, Mr. Valdar. Much you will find of paramount utility when the time comes."

"When what time comes?" Jack charily queried.

"You will recognize the moment when it is at hand," she cryptically responded. "Yet now to work, Mr. Valdar. For you to learn in perhaps a span of no more than a few weeks even the smallest fraction of what it took me decades to assimilate is indeed going to put a severe strain on my capabilities as instructor and yours as student. But I am up to the challenge. While you, Mr. Valdar," she stated as she eyed him critically, "I suspect are up to any challenge."

"Which means?" persisted Jack as he scrutinized her through hooded eyes.

"My, but you are a suspicious one," she backhandedly complimented him.

"I tend to be that way around Thrush agents," he parried her words, "especially Thrush agents offering 'lessons'."

Delphina laughed openly and heartily.

"Not a bad way to be in your line of work," she admitted once her laughter had subsided. "Yet what I am going to teach you, Mr. Valdar, is a form of mental dexterity no agent on any side of the fence should be without. What I am going to show you is how to achieve the sublime art of perfect cerebral focus, the ability to center concentration with an intensity most would never even dream possible."

Jack raised one eyebrow in her direction.

"And why do you wish to coach me in this?" he wanted to know.

She shrugged once more.

"Because you have the aptitude to become fully skilled at it. And few actually have that aptitude, Mr. Valdar. I recognized the latent talent in you immediately."

"Should I be flattered?" he asked her in a flat tone that definitely indicated he wasn't.

She laughed once more.

"That is entirely your choice," she informed him straightforwardly. "I care not whether you are flattered or flustered by the untapped facility I see in you. What I do care about is that you truly work with me to learn what I can teach."

Jack said nothing, but Delphina correctly interpreted his silence as acknowledgement he would indeed work to learn. She had no doubt much of why he would had to do with the fact he had been ordered to do so, but that fact didn't matter. She would reveal the method and he would absorb the method, and that was all that actually did matter.

"Now," the Thrush continued, eager to begin the first lesson, "I suggest you take off your jacket and tie and get comfortable. You will find this training, mainly mental though it may be, quite physically exhausting. Thus it's best to be as relaxed as possible when we begin."

Reluctantly Jack did as she recommended, draping his jacket and tie on the back of the solitary chair in the room. Then the U.N.C.L.E. CEA took a seat on that chair and set his mind to alert attention upon the tutoring of the Thrush technological residual.

* * *

Napoleon Solo, arms loaded with holiday packages, was startled by the door to the familiar Murray Hill brownstone opening in his face before he had even performed the perfunctory task of ringing the doorbell.

Illya Kuryakin set accusing eyes upon her friend. "Why did you not tell me?"

For a split-second coldness clenched at Napoleon's insides, fear gripping him that things had been settled on a particular score before he had gotten the chance to push through the necessary clearances to personally speak of it to his closest friend.

"Dr. Schulman told me you had what he referred to as 'an incident' during the last interrogation of the Reikedahl woman," declared Illya with definite irritation in his voice.

The coldness inside Napoleon thawed. There was no fear in him regarding this line of questioning.

"It was just a migraine," Solo stated simply.

"Not according to Dr. Schulman," countered Kuryakin.

Solo gave a dismissive grunt.

"You know how the U.N.C.L.E. medical staff reacts to anything where I am concerned. Every little ache becomes a major health crisis**.**"

"Gentlemen," forwarded a somewhat exasperated Ed Lein from his protective position behind Solo, "could this discussion be continued behind closed doors? I do not much appreciate two of U.N.C.L.E.'s Section Chiefs standing out in the open like gift-wrapped Christmas parcels ready to be ripped apart by Thrush snipers."

Without another word, Illya moved sideways in the doorway to allow Napoleon and his bodyguard entry.

"Take me to your tree," Napoleon spoke to his friend in a joking 'take me to your leader' manner as he pointed one particularly long, narrow present toward Illya as if it was a menacing weapon.

Meanwhile Ed carried out the customary duty of re-activating the home's security locks. Since Illya Kuryakin was the second-in-command of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E., there were a goodly number of them.

Illya led the way into the living room with its traditionally decorated Christmas tree, but still spoke nothing. Napoleon rolled his eyes once in exasperation and followed in his friend's wake. Illya, no doubt about it, was in an implacable Russian sulk.

"Merry Christmas, sweeting," Trice greeted her husband's best friend with a kiss on the cheek as he entered the confines of the living room.

"Apparently more like Miserable Christmas, if your husband has any say in the matter," grumped Napoleon as he strode to the tree and unceremoniously deposited his armload of brightly papered and beribboned packages under its evergreen boughs.

"Do not blame me for any foul mood associated with your own guilt in furtively keeping from me what happened," chastised Illya crossly.

"I didn't realize my having a migraine was a cause célèbre that had to be shouted through all the corridors of U.N.C.L.E.," returned Napoleon with equal brittleness.

The two men were standing quite close now, physically as well as verbally confronting one another.

"Thank you, Napoleon," spat out Illya acidly, "for equating me in significance with the file clerks at headquarters."

"Enough!" determined Trice sharply as she bodily set her herself between the two men, outstretching an arm on each side to place a palm flat on the chest of each. "Both of you apologize this minute for this juvenile sniping at one another!"

When neither Napoleon nor Illya seemed willing to be the first one to say he was sorry, Trice repeated with a very starched and unbendable edge invading her British-accented voice, "This very minute!"

Both men stood staring at one another for a moment more while looks of continued belligerence stemming from their current conflict, then embarrassed shame emanating from their peevish childishness, and finally regret having roots in the arrogant treatment of a trusted friend flashed in succession across their faces. Finally they mumbled all but simultaneously, "I'm sorry."

From her seat in a wingchair on the opposite side of the room Natasha amusedly remarked, "Nice refereeing, Mom. Perhaps U.N.C.L.E. should consider hiring you to mediate during routine Section Head meetings."

"But then she'd have to handle Jack Valdar as well," put in Napoleon in an attempt to lighten the mood, "and I doubt even your mother could put up with the three of us grousing in a closed room."

Natasha smirked at that image and passed her Dyadya a conspiratorial wink.

"Now suppose we all sit down and discuss this like adults," suggested Trice, ignoring the playful byplay between Natasha and Napoleon.

Napoleon, still wearing his topcoat, dropped himself somewhat disgruntledly into an available easy chair while Illya perched tensely on the sofa. Trice came and sat beside her husband on the couch and soothingly took one of his hands within both her own.

"What is this about?" asked Illya's wife.

Illya looked to Napoleon and Napoleon met his friend's gaze. Together they nodded, wordlessly communicating between themselves that it would be fine to speak of the situation as long as no actual facts that had been revealed during the interrogation of the Thrushie became part of the conversation.

"I had a second interrogation session with the self-surrendered Thrush agent yesterday," ventured Illya, "and during that session a veridical was used."

"To which Delphina," went on Napoleon, not even noticing how he was so casually using the Thrush agent's first name, "had a particularly violent adverse reaction."

"Delphina is it now?" Illya caught the personalized reference as he raised one eyebrow in his friend's direction.

"I know you don't agree with the way I go about getting enemies to talk, Illya," noted Napoleon. "That's an old argument."

"That's not exactly with what I do not agree, Napoleon," Illya begged to differ.

"Be that as it may," Trice put in a word to get the dialogue back on track. "I take it this adverse reaction has something to do with the current hostility between you?"

Napoleon idly scratched an eyebrow.

"Yes and no," he hedged.

"I'm going to be blunt," put forth Illya. "Because of a certain episode in the past…"

"Napoleon told me about that past episode, darling," Trice informed her husband candidly.

Illya blinked in surprise, but subsequently noted, "Then you understand that there were supposedly experiments done with…" He hesitated, obviously uncomfortable. "Look darling," he forwarded to his wife as he squeezed her fingers in his, "the bottom line is this Reikedahl woman supposedly was altered to amplify her nerve synaptic patterns to somehow touch Napoleon's."

Now it was Trice who blinked.

"Typical Thrush mad science and all that, Mom," put in Natasha gamely.

"And Thrush mad scientists, or their adherents, usually claim a good deal more than is substantive fact," Illya assured his wife. "But it seems that during the interrogation session, Napoleon…" Illya glanced over at his pointedly quiet friend. "Napoleon actually did experience many of the physical symptoms the Thrush was having as she tried to fight off the truth serum. Something he neglected to tell me afterward."

"It was just a particularly intense migraine," stressed Napoleon through tight lips.

"And Dr. Schulman strongly disagrees with that self-diagnosis, Napoleon," Illya waylaid his friend.

"Which only makes me regret letting Jenny summon him to my office," Napoleon related in annoyance. What he neglected to mention was that his assistant had been more than a little concerned when, some twenty or thirty minutes after the end of Delphina's interrogation session, she'd found him with his head buried in his arms on his desk, his breathing erratic and his eyes squeezed tightly shut in all-too-obvious pain. Thus Jenny likely would have summoned the good doctor with or without her boss' consent.

"As Dr. Schulman communicated the diagnostic synopsis to me, your physical state bordered on intense drug reaction acutely similar to Ms. Reikedahl's," persisted Illya, disregarding his friend's attempt to make less of the 'incident'.

Napoleon pressed the fingers of one hand to his lips and kept purposefully silent.

"The woman is a danger to you, Napoleon," pronounced Illya without a doubt.

"I agree, sir," Ed Lein spoke unexpectedly from his position leaning against the entryway into the living room proper. He was not part of this family group, so he kept himself generally unobtrusive. Yet he had been in Central Park with Solo and the Thrush woman and, though he hadn't known exactly what was happening between the two, he had noted the tension that had alerted his trained senses to some form of indefinable threat to his charge. Thus had he been more than routinely anxious to remove the Continental Chief from the immediate company of the strange supposed prisoner.

"You'll excuse me, sir," Ed directed his words toward Solo as every pair of eyes in the room focused on him, "but when you were in the park with the Thrush... The way she kept touching you, the way she looked at you, like she was unduly spellbound with your reactions… Well, it chilled me right through to my bones and sent sharp warning needles pricking all my senses. Now you know I'm not an irrational man, sir, and thus such instinctive reactions on my part cannot be accounted merely unfounded hypersensitivity to an atypical state of affairs."

Napoleon dropped his head in one hand and rubbed his furrowed brow as he relented, but only marginally, steadfastly refusing to directly address the contention Delphina was somehow a danger to him. "If you are seeking assurances, Illya, that I will be more cautious around Delphina, you have them," he voiced the halfway concessions he was willing to make. "I won't do anything stupidly reckless. And I'll tell you in future if I get a migraine or any other physical reaction that could allegedly relate to her in some way. All right?"

Illya, Trice, Natasha and Ed all exchanged discontented glances. But there was little else to be said. Napoleon would do as he promised. Of that there was no question. Yet in that very promise was the implicit assertion he did not intend to completely cut off all contact with Delphina Reikedahl.

* * *

The housekeeper answered the doorbell and sighed at the cellophane-wrapped plate of pastries she saw in the deliveryman's hand. Skolebrod. She had forgotten about the standing holiday order with the specialty bakery for these Norwegian filled buns.

"I should have cancelled those," she murmured more to herself than to the deliveryman as she reluctantly accepted the parcel. "Only the snow miss likes them and she isn't here this year."

In the study off the main entry, Niles Ospreye looked up at the softly spoken words of his housekeeper.

Ospreye maintained two residences in the New York metropolitan area: one expensive condo penthouse in Manhattan as his public home, and this palatial and very secure estate on Long Island as his private abode. The "snow miss" was never to be found in his public home, but she was normally a fixture here. Still, having one of his servants so casually acknowledge the presence of Delphina Reikedahl within any dwelling he owned was a security risk Niles did not take lightly.

At the door the deliveryman shrugged.

"I was ordered to deliver them as usual, so I have," he stated a bit bitterly, likely resentful of having to make a delivery on Christmas Day.

"Veronica," Ospreye requested his housekeeper's presence once he heard the front door close behind the deliveryman.

Veronica steeled her spine at the particular tone of the voice. Her employer did not sound in the least happy.

"Yes sir?" she inquired as she stood in the open doorway of the study, wrapped plate of skolebrod still in hand.

"You are not to mention to anyone outside these walls who is or is not in residence here at any time," he chastised the woman sternly.

"I beg pardon, sir," mumbled the housekeeper, painfully aware she might have just written her own death warrant with her careless words. Thrush management types were not generally of forgiving natures and, for all his well-bred polite manners, Niles Ospreye was no exception to the rule.

Grunting noncommittally, Ospreye returned to his seeming preoccupation with reading a Finnish newspaper. The housekeeper, knowing when to make a strategic retreat, soundlessly walked toward the kitchen at the back of the house.

"Time for a change in staff," Niles mumbled to himself once the woman was clear of earshot. Decision made, he gave the matter no more current thought. He had minions that could deal efficiently with 'firing' Veronica. Such details required only his command, not his personal action.

For some minutes Niles busied himself with reading an editorial in the newspaper. It seemed, from the condemnatory nature of the article, that the Finnish government was being chastised by a good portion of that country's citizenry for its "lax regulations" regarding lucisorqe. Those regulations had now been tightened of course, but many – like the writer of this column –considered the new measures "too little too late".

Niles smirked to himself, agreeing with the author. It had been ridiculously easy for Thrush to arrange for lucisorqe to be stolen from supposedly secure stockpiles in Finland. But then his smirk twisted into a grimace as he realized that, with the new regulations in place, such an operation might not prove so easy in future. Fortunate then that the Russian mob was getting the main shipment of the mineral smuggled into the U.S. within the week. Very fortunate indeed as this shipment might comprise the entirety of Thrush's own stockpile of the scarce mineral at least until a new process was successfully put in place to surreptitiously obtain more. Yet that made it all the more important that the current consignment make its way into Thrush's hands without U.N.C.L.E.'s damnable interference.

Lucisorqe's necessity in the coating of the light manipulation suit made it problematic that the mineral was so rare. Making the suits standard Thrush kit during covert operations had the promise to confound U.N.C.L.E. on so many fronts; it seemed like a particularly sweet dream to Niles and all the members of the Thrush Central Council. Yet right now the shadow organization did not control enough of a supply of the mineral to make that dream scenario a reality. Because of that fundamental lack, only a half-dozen of the suits existed at present with one of those for the moment at least in the hands of U.N.C.L.E. itself.

And such was not the only problem that needed ironing out. The fact weaponry could not be concealed under or on the suit was yet another issue. However, the most pressing setback lay in the fact a wearer of the suit could still be detected by the magnetic fields of U.N.C.L.E.'s own pesky new technology, the bio-drone.

The thought of the bio-drone made Niles harrumph noisily. How was it that U.N.C.L.E. had been able to come up with something to counteract the light manipulation suit before they had even known of its existence? Thrush's own technicians were trying desperately to recreate the science of the bio-drone so that the light manipulation suit could be reconfigured with some immunity to its magnetic probe. Thus far, however, they had met with no success. The only real option was, therefore, to steal the technology from U.N.C.L.E. itself.

This last thought brought a little smile to Ospreye's lips. Yes, that was the ticket and a plan to do just that was well underway. It seemed Thrush had an exclusive secret weapon that few on the Council other than himself had credited as such. Before he had forwarded to his high-level peers the advantage of what they had previously created and how it could be used, that is.

"Ah, Delphina, my unique one, it is just a shame we cannot readily reproduce in others what is now inherent in you," Niles remarked softly to himself. "What an extraordinary task force such a group of specialized agents would be! But your father's genius, my dear, relied on an unparalleled opportunity and a span of years of individualized study even Thrush has not the means to duplicate. You are truly one of a kind, min søte prøveversjon."

Just then the doorbell rang again. This time it was one of the maids who answered its shrill summons and subsequently let David Islenleque, Ospreye's right-hand man, into the hallway and then into the privacy of the study. Niles had been expecting the Frenchman and had made that clear previously to his household staff.

"So David, you had the video enhanced?" questioned Niles of the tall, well-dressed man in his late thirties who entered the room where Ospreye sat now folding his newspaper.

"En effet, Niles," answered Islenleque in his French sprinkled and accented English. "The audio portion was the most difficult to improve in quality, since U.N.C.L.E. had some sort of electronic interference device secured on Solo to make recording difficult. I hate to admit it, but it fulfilled its purpose admirablement. Still, we did manage with some advanced augmentation procedures to overcome most of the deliberate static it produced, making at least part of the conversation audible."

Niles nodded his understanding of the technical limitations and pointed toward a closed cabinet that housed, as David well knew, a flat-screen television and DVD hookup. The younger man produced a sleeved disc from his inside coat pocket, slipped the CD out of the plastic sheath, pressed the button to open the slide on the DVD player, and finally placed the disc in the compartment letting the machine automatically pull the drawer back into itself. He handed Niles the set of wireless headphones stored near the player, thus insuring his superior would get as clear an audio feedback from the disc as was possible.

The video that began to play was of Solo and Delphina's outing in Central Park, and Niles watched it with hungry eyes and ears. Hungry not only for knowledge as to what had gone on, but hungry as well for the sight and sound of his Delphina. That hunger did not escape David's notice as the subordinate's disapproval showed plainly in every line of his body.

The audio quality of the recording was indeed not the best, and a good deal of what was said was completely unintelligible to Niles. Yet enough was understandable to register a smug smile on his face.

"She's plays him well," he remarked in a self-satisfied tone.

"You sure he isn't playing her?" retorted David. He had seen and heard the entire video more than once and was in no way convinced of Delphina's upper hand during the exchange. "Solo's no imbécile, you know."

"Oh, that I do know," granted Ospreye. "But Mr. Solo is also a bit more soft-hearted than is recommendable in his position. That has always been his weakness."

"I always heard his weakness was sex," noted David with a shrug that seemed to exemplify his supremely Gallic indifference to any such weakness.

Considering Ospreye's own mistress was so inextricably entangled in the current state of affairs with Solo, this blunt assertion on David's part was no doubt intended to give his superior apprehensive pause. Niles' reaction instead was a snort of amusement. Sometimes even intelligent people like David failed to see beyond the obvious.

"Yes and no," Ospreye corrected the other man. "While I certainly don't deny the existence of that particular weakness in him, it is itself but a veneer wrapped around his soft-heartedness. He has a bit too much of the idealist in his soul. Thus he craves the warmth of individual human contact as a touchstone against all he's experienced of the cruelty inherent in humanity's more collective coldness. Considering his profession, sex was certainly in his younger days the quickest and safest way to gain that reassurance, at least after a fashion."

"And now?" queried Islenleque with squinted eyes as he watched the scene unfolding silently before him on the television panel.

"Now we play on his memories of a little albino girl who held his hand when he was trapped and in dire straits," replied Niles. "Now we let that soft heart in him empathize with someone he thinks he understands."

"Yet essentially cannot," finalized David somewhat acidly.

Ospreye glanced up at the other man. There was no love lost between David and Delphina. He knew that quite well.

"You distrust her?" he asked plainly, knowing the 'her' did not need more clarification as to who was being referenced.

"Mais bien sûr. I always have and I always will," David stated frankly as he casually brushed an imaginary bit of lint from his impeccable suit in counterpoint to his statement. "You know that. She knows that. I won't lie about it."

"No, don't ever lie about it, David," noted Niles, "because if you do I will know it is time to start distrusting you."

David said nothing. He knew better than to do so.

"I'll keep the DVD," further spoke Ospreye he removed the headphones with the finish of the video. "The arms assessor, the Anuchin woman," he continued fluidly on to other business. "Where is she now?"

"Venezuela," supplied Islenleque, "finishing up a weapons buy for some South American insurrectionists."

"I want her taken into Thrush custody for protected transport to her assignment for us," spoke out Ospreye with authority.

"Tout de suite?" questioned David pointedly.

"Let her finish out her current contract by all means. We are not in the business of preventing mercenaries from earning their way in the world," Niles asserted 'reasonably' causing David to smirk. "But as soon as that is done, have her taken in hand. Gently, mind you."

"Naturellement," granted David.

"We can't afford for anything to go wrong with the transfer of the gun oil into our safekeeping. And Ms. Anuchin is a necessary cog in the machinery put in place to assure that eventuality."

"Je comprends," guaranteed David.

"Oh, and I'd like you to see about replacing Veronica," the older Thrush stated nonchalantly, as if in afterthought. "She's become a bit too talkative."

David smirked.

"Bien sûr, Niles," he acknowledged the unspoken part of the other man's command.

Ospreye waved a hand in casual dismissal and Islenleque turned sharply on his heel, leaving the way he had come.

After David's exit, Niles Ospreye started the video over from the beginning, letting it play silently as he watched. Rising from his chair and walking up close to the television screen, he lightly traced the outline of Delphina's image projected there.

"Careful, min søte prøveversjon," he cautioned his absent mistress, his eyes following the way she made physical contact with Solo during the recorded interlude. "Do not let that soft heart of his touch you too deeply, or I will know it is time to start distrusting you."

* * *

Though the rest of that Christmas Day passed in a much more convivial manner within the Murray Hill brownstone, it was toward evening – after a large, satisfying and undeniably delicious holiday meal prepared by the culinarily-gifted Mrs. Sedowsky – that Napoleon experienced an extreme pang of conscience. He had pledged Illya only that he would tell his friend of all **future** reactions he might have that could be linked to Delphina Reikedahl. He had said nothing of **past** reactions in that vein. Still, his purposefully evasive wording began to gnaw at his own ethics. The truth was he just didn't want to inform Illya of what had occurred in Central Park the day before. He simply didn't want to give his friend any substantive reason to insist he have no more direct dealings with the Thrush technological residual. And it was cowardly of him to hide his feelings on this score behind ambiguity.

If there was one thing Napoleon Solo was not, it was a coward. Thus he asked his friend if they could talk in private about some supposed other business matter and found himself alone with Illya in the younger man's private study, double-doors confidentially shut against even the pervasive presence of Napoleon's bodyguard.

"Look Illya," began Napoleon uneasily after Kuryakin had offered and then poured them both snifters of good brandy, "I don't want you making a mountain out of this, but…"

Napoleon swirled the rich golden-brown liquor in his glass, pointedly studying the resultant movement for a few moments before he took a deep breath and spoke again.

"In the park yesterday," he felt his way through this revelation, words not coming to him with their customary effortlessness, "Delphina… Well, I'm not sure even how to put this. It all seems absolutely preposterous when I really think about it. Nonetheless, she…"

Napoleon sighed, still unsure how to verbalize any of it.

Illya's light-colored gaze caught the darker one of his friend.

"She made sure you felt the connection between you," accurately deduced Illya.

Napoleon nodded mutely.

"I'm not sure I believe in any of this technical mumbo-jumbo regarding amplifying nerve synapses," forwarded Napoleon after a short span of silence had passed between them. "Yet I am sure I experienced an odd… Well, it was like my nerves were wires from which the protective coating had been stripped and they were pressing against likewise stripped wires within her to produce a shared electrical spark. That's the best way I can explain it."

Illya smiled one of his infamous half-smiles.

"That's actually a remarkably accurate description," complimented Illya, "if a bit non-technical in approach."

Napoleon smiled in turn at his friend.

"Always the smart Russian," he teased.

"But apparently not smart enough to get you to comprehend in how much unnecessary jeopardy you are putting yourself through close contact with this woman," spoke Illya with bemused defeat in his tone.

"We need answers, Illya," Napoleon offered explanation of his own motives. "We need to know what Thrush intends to do with the bio-drone. We need to know why Ospreye sent Delphina forward to pave the way for whatever is Thrush's ultimate intention. We need to know the full extent of what Delphina herself can do, and if any of whatever powers she has can be recreated in any form in others. And you know and I know we aren't going to get those answers by playing it safe."

Illya sighed.

"I don't dismiss the truth of anything you've said, Napoleon," he granted his friend, "but what you are doing seems a huge gamble with no reasonable assurance of a worthwhile payoff. And we have no clue what side-effects there might be…"

"She pledged it would do me no permanent damage, Illya," abruptly interrupted Napoleon, that abruptness born of his own surety regarding Delphina's honesty in this assertion. "Nor would anything she did make me a traitor to my own, as she phrased it."

"And you believe her," stated Illya unnecessarily, "but I do not since I simply do not credit her with the foreknowledge necessary to make any such grandiose guarantee. She is willing to play a high stakes game, Napoleon, because she is tenaciously mired in the certainty her father was a genius. Thus in her mind his theories cannot do otherwise but be proven immaculately perfect and she will bet everything on her sheer conviction of that outcome. In the end, however, her certainty and her conviction are based on nothing more substantial than obsessive adoration."

"And that is her weak point, Illya," speculated Napoleon. "We can find a way to use that to get all our answers."

"Or she will use your heedless pursuit of this gambit to instead get all her answers," countered Illya.

Napoleon stubbornly thrust out his chin.

"It's my risk to take, Illya," he reminded his friend.

"It's U.N.C.L.E.'s risk," corrected Illya. "I know how resourceful you are, Napoleon, and I also know how often your aggressive, sometimes fast-and-loose style has benefited U.N.C.L.E. In fact, no one knows that better than I do. I also know what the Command means to you, and thus what you will and will not wager involving the organization itself. You may be able to nonchalantly bluff others in that regard, but you cannot bluff me. Yet your purposeful and bolshie obtuseness in one particular never fails to surprise me, tovarisch, considering the habitually inflated state of your ego," Illya could not resist alleviating the gravity of the discussion with a mischievous jab at his friend's personality.

Napoleon harrumphed before taking an uncharacteristically gauche, rather large swig of his brandy in an attempt to keep from rising to Illya's verbal bait. Illya inwardly smirked at his friend's reaction, satisfied that the affable, if competitively edged, partnerly ease was fully restored between them after their earlier bout of "sniping".

"You time and time again fail to appreciate, Napoleon," Illya returned to the full seriousness of his previous line of speech, "what your individual loss, whether physical or mental, would cost U.N.C.L.E. as an organization. As Waverly once embodied the Command, so now do you. Therefore all I'm asking is, if you won't play it close to the vest with regard to your own individual interests, that you at least consider well **all** U.N.C.L.E.'s interests before jumping into this headfirst."

With Illya's final thought-provoking admonition, they spoke no more on the subject. Instead Illya set up the chessboard on the table between their comfortable leather chairs, and for the remainder of the evening the two men companionably sipped their brandy and strategized on the non-world-affecting moves needed to win a far less complicated match.

* * *

**Act II: There are more things in heaven and U.N.C.L.E…**

On the day after Christmas 2007 U.N.C.L.E. returned to an all-too-full schedule of covert missions intent on thwarting the grandiose plans of various megalomaniacs and criminal organizations. The season of "peace on Earth" didn't seem to be having any ethical effect in those particular quarters.

Illya Kuryakin had his own sights honed in on another interrogation session with the Thrush technological residual. Napoleon Solo, however, had bid him in no uncertain terms to "let things lay" for a while, an order that the other man found intensely frustrating. The truth drug used during the last session had unquestionably produced positive inroads into breaking through Delphina's controlled camouflage. Napoleon's own more casual talk with the Reikedahl woman during their sojourn in Central Park had apparently produced even more. Thus Illya was certain now was not the time to "let things lay", but rather to relentlessly press forward. The Russian was determined he would uncover whatever Thrush plot remained coiled and poised to strike under the smokescreen of Delphina's supposed surrender. Yet he couldn't get his closest friend, the man who also happened to hold the highest command authority within U.N.C.L.E., to agree with his assessment of the situation.

However, Napoleon had mentioned nothing regarding an "informal chat" with the Thrush on Illya's part. And perhaps, lacking the rigid set of rules that governed a formal cross-examination of a prisoner by the Command, such a chat might prove even more successful than the standard means of information gathering. Thus did Illya make it a point to pay a visit to Delphina Reikedahl on this after-Christmas morning.

Seated within the cell's one chair, Delphina looked up from her breakfast where it was set out on a small wheeled cart as Illya punched in the key code to her cell door. He entered the cubicle's confines and the electronic portal automatically closed behind him.

"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin," she addressed him with ill-suppressed amusement, "would you like coffee before grilling me this fine day? I'm sure the guard would be willing to bring in a second cup. Though, rather than fine china, I'm afraid it will be sturdy steel like mine," Delphina noted as she experimentally rapped the currently empty metal cup against a table leg. Then she set about filling it with coffee from a small, equally metal pot that rested on the table's surface.

"I'd prefer stimulating conversation to stimulating beverages," responded Illya decidedly as he perched tensely on the edge of the cell's small cot.

"Of the former I have made no offer," noted Delphina, "so your preference between the two is a moot point."

Illya eyed her coolly.

"Steadfastly determined not to be rattled by my unofficial presence, Ms. Reikedahl?" he taunted her.

"You have no truth serum in my veins now to force me to utter nonsensical emotionalisms, Mr. Kuryakin," Delphina stated bluntly. "So do not expect me to rise like Osiris with every barb you toss."

"Even dead, Osiris wound up torn limb from limb at his own brother's hand."

"And needed Isis' love to be gathered back together enough to even receive an honorable burial," finished off Delphina tersely. "Meaning what, Mr. Kuryakin? That I should expect Thrush to treat me as Set did Osiris? Or that I should envision U.N.C.L.E. in Isis' role?"

"It was you who first mentioned the Egyptian god of the dead," pointed out Illya with a shrug. "Perhaps you see yourself as something similar in Thrush's eyes: buried for years beneath the onus of being but the result of what were considered failed experiments; suddenly resurrected to the forefront of that organization as an exotic approach for bringing down an old foe; perfectly content to dwell in a nebulous netherworld on the edges of Thrush rather than face the truth you are nothing to them but a concocted means to a desired end."

Delphina's eyes narrowed.

"What do you want, Mr. Kuryakin?" she inquired acidly. "Speak plainly."

"I rather thought I was already speaking quite plainly. Nonetheless I will concede that I do have one specific want at the moment."

"And that is?"

"I want to know what happened between you and Napoleon on your walk in Central Park," put forth Illya straightforwardly.

Delphina leaned back as much as was possible in the straight-backed chair in which she sat.

"Why not just ask him?" she taunted Kuryakin. "After all, he is your friend, isn't he? Your closest friend who hides from you no secrets?"

Something in her tone needled Illya, but he did not let his agitation show.

"He only knows what happened to him," he thus countered, feigning unawareness of her goad. "He doesn't know what you did to make that happen."

"What makes you think that I did anything at all?" Delphina demanded in her turn. "What makes you think I have control of any kind over the phenomenon?"

Illya eyed her for a long time without saying a single word.

"I do have another question," he finally forwarded. "Was your hair, like your eyes, intended as another ploy to some ulterior purpose?"

"My hair?" she asked him with an amused but somehow very knowing smile.

"Don't play the innocent;" Illya baited her, "the role suits you ill. Your eyebrows and eyelashes are still the pure white customary for an albino. So it is a logical conclusion that the natural state of your hair is just as white, and that you thus particularly chose not only its present style but its current color as well."

"It is a fairly common style and color," Delphina smoothly put him off. "Any reputable beauty salon will provide both with little fuss."

What came privately to her mind was the memory of having the multilayered blond dye – a very special dye complexly laced with liquid lucisorqe – applied to her hair in a Thrush lab shortly before her odd surrender to U.N.C.L.E.

"That doesn't answer my question and you know it," Illya pronounced somewhat sourly. "But I will make my question more direct so to avoid any convenient misunderstanding of my meaning on your part. Was that color and style chosen as a means to play on Napoleon's old memories and possibly engender in him a false sense of trust?"

Delphina smiled that amused yet knowing smile once more.

"And why should any such possible sense of trust be accredited as necessarily false?" she asked boldly.

Illya eyed her in silence once more. Then, seemingly having worked out whatever he needed to, he rose to his feet.

"Thank you, Ms. Reikedahl, for the very enlightening conversation," he articulated with pointed politeness, marking an end to his visit.

Illya walked to the small call button on one side of the ribbed doorframe and pressed it firmly. The guard summoned by his action punched in the necessary key code on the control panel located on the other side of the Plexiglas-fronted cubicle, allowing the Number 1 of Section III to pass outside the cell's boundaries once more.

Before vanishing down the security corridor beyond Delphina's line of sight, however, Illya turned back and questioned, "Does Niles Ospreye even suspect the nature of the incendiary bomb he's willingly handed over to a munitions expert?"

"And who or what do you believe I can blast into full conflagration for you, Mr. Kuryakin?"

"We shall see," pronounced Illya with a sardonic half-smile.

Without waiting for any reaction on the part of the Thrush technological residual, Kuryakin was gone.

Delphina found herself staring down the hallway where Kuryakin had made his pointed exit long after his physical form had disappeared from her view. Her mind was far away from that hallway in U.N.C.L.E.'s New York headquarters, however. It was stationed in a Thrush lab on a day not so many weeks ago…

"_You don't have to do this, Delphina," Niles assured her, even though he unquestionably knew that wasn't true._

"_Nonsense," she protested. "Little as I like your man David and thus am loathe to agree with him on anything, he's right in this. It does have to be tested on me. I may have an entirely different reaction than others have had, and we both know why."_

_This was nothing more than truth. Since absorption of lucisorqe into the bloodstream seemed to have a disorienting effect on the senses that ultimately resulted in a destructive reconfiguration of certain synapses in the brain, finding out if her enhanced versions of those synapses might either intensify or mitigate that effect was valid science._

_Neither Delphina Reikedahl nor Niles Ospreye could ignore the possibilities of such science: Delphina because it could very well reflect on her father's research and Niles because it could very well prove useful to Thrush. That the science might in the end leave her forever in a permanent state of sensory confusion was something on which both preferred not to dwell. So Delphina kissed her lover in reassurance and made her way into the glass-enclosed and atmosphere-controlled chamber where this experiment would be played out in full._

_She sat in the single chair in the small cubicle as a gloved lab technician took a small vial of pure lucisorqe – no mucking about with mixtures for this test – and poured a small dribble on the exposed flesh of each of her arms. He gently rubbed in the pearlescent mineral, almost as if he was applying a soothing lotion or healing balm Delphina found herself thinking wryly. Then he nodded and left the chamber and Delphina waited._

_Oxygen was sucked out slowly from the cubicle and then stabilized at a particular point where the environment was a good deal less than ideal and more in the range of high mountain terrain. Delphina found herself taking abnormally deep breaths, trying to force more of the depleted life-giving gas into her lungs. She found herself becoming lightheaded and then it happened: she couldn't see but she would swear there were strange sounds coming from everything she tried to look at, like little electronic pulsing noises. She touched the arms of the chair, or thought she did. She felt nothing yet smelled something akin to the scent of linen every time she moved her fingers over those arms._

_Panic beginning to set in, she set her jaw and concentrated. She could control this. She would control this._

_Her decades of training in extreme mental focus took over. She stared forward and told her brain what to do. After some minutes of fluctuating between the drug-like power of lucisorqe and her utter concentration, her iron control won out._

"_I see you again, Niles," she said with slow distinctiveness, willing herself to hear her own words as she spoke them to her lover who stood beyond the glass. "I lost sight of you for a while, but I see you again now. I can feel and hear rightly too. Though I have to concentrate very hard to keep everything in proper function, and it's very exhausting."_

"_Take out more oxygen," commanded David Islenleque with complete detachment._

_The tech did as ordered and Delphina fought to regain the delicate sensory balance she had found in the previous atmospheric state of the chamber. Sweat broke out on her brow as it furrowed with the effort of her mental exertion. She gripped the arms of the chair in tight fingers as her chest rose and fell with heavily panting breaths._

"_I can still see you, Niles," she assured the only person beyond the glass who mattered to her._

"_Perhaps a bit more oxygen depletion," suggested David._

"_No," determined Ospreye with steely conviction. "That's more than enough. All the others would have been long past the point of convulsions by now, with all their senses in disarray. There is nothing more to prove, David."_

_Islenleque nodded his reluctant acquiescence to the wishes of the Thrush council member. He signaled to the tech, who slowly restored the cubicle to a normal oxygen level. Finally it was deemed safe to escort Delphina out of the chamber._

_Niles was immediately there to draw her into his arms._

"_It does not affect you like the others," he noted quietly as he held her close._

_Delphina shook her head._

"_No, it affects me the same," she corrected him. "I just used the techniques my father taught me to control the disassociation of my sensory pathways and force them back into normal patterns. But like any exercise of that focused mental centering, it has exhausted me beyond measure. I could sleep for two days straight," she furthered as she leaned more heavily against Niles' supportive body._

"_I'll see to it you get all the rest you need, min søte prøveversjon," protectively soothed Niles as he softly kissed her forehead. "Even David must now admit there is more to be vigilantly hoarded within your uniqueness than indifferently discarded." …_

Delphina's mind snapped back to the present as she murmured quietly, "Oh, I imagine Niles has at least an inkling of your perspective, Mr. Kuryakin."

* * *

Napoleon Solo, Number 1 in Section I of U.N.C.L.E.'s North American division, eyed the four men and two women who sat in chairs surrounding the circular desk that served as the centerpiece of his office. The six individuals were all highly capable, impeccably trained Enforcement Agents, members of the Section II elite of the organization. Still Solo regretted the danger into which he would be sending them within just hours. He knew them all prepared to deal with the immense risks involved, knew them all alert and efficient and willing. Yet they were all in the prime of life and the idea of any of them forfeiting the continuance of health and longevity into the careless hands of fickle and feckless Fate bothered him more than most realized. Solo made a point to always come across as assured and confident, not a man who doubted the necessity of hazardous actions. Nonetheless strictly to himself he admitted it had been much simpler when it had been his own life he had been gambling in the field. Assigning others to face possible death or torture was a reality that secretly unsettled his stomach and gave him many a restless night.

This particular mission was well organized and resourcefully primed. Nothing about it lacked appropriate groundwork. If it remained nonetheless perilous in the extreme, he could at least rest easy that every detail had been gauged with clockwork precision and infinite care. There should be no surprises. But then there were always surprises, weren't there? Things out of the blue, aside from the expected, beyond calculation. And Napoleon's generally infallible inner instinct was warning him something out of the blue, aside from the expected, beyond calculation would indeed be encountered during this mission.

Shaking off his unfounded yet persistent feeling of foreboding, Napoleon dealt directly with the matters immediately at hand.

"We've had word through our sources," he informed the group straightforwardly, "that Thrush intends to send an escort into South America to bring Nikolaevna Anuchin in for her contracted assignment regarding the weapons shipment from the Russian Mafia."

"Not totally unexpected," coolly noted the CEA of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E.

"No, not totally unexpected," conceded Napoleon, "but not totally to the best of plan either."

"I suppose that means I am on a flight for Venezuela today or tomorrow?" questioned Agent Kuryakin.

"The red-eye tonight to Maracaibo," Solo responded simply. "Jack will be accompanying you, Natasha."

"I am to play out the hired bodyguard gambit then," Chief Enforcement Agent Valdar did not ask, rather stated.

His superior nodded.

"We know where the weapons will be stored for transport?" matter-of-factly inquired Agent Beckstein.

"According to our deep-cover agent within the New York workings of the Russian mob, a private warehouse in Matawan, New Jersey," Solo gave her the necessary facts. "You will be introduced as the warehouse management's security expert, Laura."

Laura nodded. "Which means Yunusov will attempt to keep me out of the way of everything going on."

"Yet he'll be forced to deal with you or risk exposing the illegality of his activities to the warehouse owners," supplemented Solo, even though he realized Laura was fully aware of how her role would be used.

"Pedro," Napoleon now addressed the Mexican, "you'll go in as hired grunt muscle."

"Si," acknowledged Agent Arquas with a lopsided grin, "a mere hauler of boxes who of course will also be kept at an arm's distance by the Russian mobsters and whatever people Thrush press into the vise."

"But always at my right hand, Pedro," Laura commented easily as she gave her partner a ready wink.

"Que va siempre sin la necesidad de decir," responded Pedro with a ready wink of his own.  
{Translation: That goes always without the necessity of saying.}

"Kyle, Al," Solo proceeded with the briefing, "you've both been given fully wrapped avouchment by our Moscow deep-cover agent. Thus Yunusov will accept you both as transfers from Russia to the group's operations in New York. I hope you've been practicing your Russian language skills."

"Kazhdyj den' i do pozdnej nochy," Agent Walters assured him, his accent flawless.  
{Translation: Every day and well into the night.}

"Dostatochno, chtoby ikh ubyedit', shto ya Gollandets, kotoryj desyatiletiye zhil v Moskvye," spoke Agent van Niels in turn, his accent much less perfect but very much in keeping with his own back-story.  
{Translation: Enough to convince them I am a Dutchman who has lived a decade in Moscow."}

With a quick nod of his head, Solo gave evidence of his approval of their competence.

"Then it appears all is as ready as can be," the Number 1 of Section I gave his blessing to the upcoming mission. Something still was not sitting right with him. Something he could not put a finger on, could not quite capture in his mind, and thus something that had to go unvoiced.

"What if Jack is recognized as an U.N.C.L.E. agent?" Natasha ventured boldly into this very real possibility. "His cover as my bodyguard is a pretty vulnerable one should they investigate too closely."

"Thrush satraps retain so much independence, they oftentimes overlook the obvious," put forth Napoleon bluntly.

"And I'll be disguised as well. My hair goes redder, my eyes go green, and I sprout a light beard," tossed back Jack with practiced nonchalance.

Natasha eyed Jack with particular forwardness, wanting him to comprehend it was his physique that made him most readily identifiable. And such wouldn't be masked for this mission since they needed that asset for possible bait to trap Yunusov.

"No offense, but it might take more than that for you to go unnoticed," she threw back bluntly, trying for as much nonchalance in her tone as had been evidenced in that of her partner. "And you are pretty high on Thrush's list of most wanted for interrogation by Central."

"Perhaps so," Solo agreed with the youngest member of the team, "but it might play to our advantage for him to be so recognized by Thrush. As long as you stick to your guns about him being your hired bodyguard and react with spoiled petulance to any suggestion you might have been duped by him. Understood?"

Natasha eyed her ultimate superior steadily. Oh yes, she understood all right. She was being told that, if the mission required it, she abandon her partner without a fight to whatever fate Thrush decreed. And looking at Jack's composed expression, she realized the man himself took no issue with this being the sanctioned course of action.

Now Natasha would be the first to admit she and Jack were far from friends. Yet, like or dislike, they were partners in the field. And field partners discarding one another into the hands of the enemy without at least attempting resistance was not the ideology she had been taught by years of stories from her own father and the man currently asking her if she understood the intent of this personally foreign decree.

The hazel-brown eyes of the Number 1 of Section I were holding her own blue ones in an uncompromising stare. This was an order, plain and simple, an order she would be required to obey without question.

"Understood?" repeated Solo meaningfully as Natasha found herself swallowing hard.

"Perfectly understood," she finally declared to her Dyadya, knowing full well he of all people would never even have considered for so much as half-a-minute doing what he was asking of her had he been going into the same situation with his own field partner forty years ago.

"All right then, you all have your assignments," finalized Napoleon. "I know you'll each fulfill your part in this admirably."

And with that the Russian Arms Affair began its final phase.

* * *

Sitting in her favorite easy chair in the living room of her Murray Hill home, Trice Kuryakin almost literally jumped a foot in the air at the normal chiming of the hour by the old grandfather clock in the nearby hall. With a sigh, she abandoned any more useless attempts to read from the novel lying open in her lap, slamming it shut with a pointed thud. She had been restless since the phone call from her daughter a couple of hours ago, that phone call wherein Natasha had simply advised her mother she would be "out of town for at least a few days and maybe for a few weeks".

Trice hadn't questioned as to where the young woman was going or how to contact her. Illya Kuryakin's wife knew better than to do so, knew her daughter was off on a mission for U.N.C.L.E., knew Natasha neither could nor would tell her anything more than what she had already. She also knew this trip was one from which her daughter might return injured… or not return at all. Yet Trice kept all that anxiety purposely out of her voice as she had wished her daughter a heartfelt safe journey. Now, however, all that coolly suppressed worry was catching up to her.

She had always been well aware of the dangerous path in life her only child had chosen. She had never sugarcoated its very real hazards in her mind, even when she uttered all the correct and falsely blasé words the loved one of any individual in such a line of work had to say. The public front of normalcy must always be maintained, as much for the individual's own state of mind as for any other more obvious reason. It had been difficult enough with Illya, though he had spent but a short time in his return to the field after she had met and subsequently married him. His current position as an administrator within U.N.C.L.E. remained perilous to some extent, but at least he wasn't generally confronting adversaries, gun in hand, with guns likewise pointed at him. Now though, with Natasha's life at direct risk, all the strain of the necessity of keeping up that public front of normalcy was wearing Trice's nerves to a frazzle.

Trice was not by nature a nervous woman. Nor was she overly protective and smothering of Natasha. She truly appreciated her daughter's deep sense of purpose and idealistic certainty, certainty that granted the young woman the internal strength needed to pursue the career she was. Still, in her heart of hearts Trice sincerely wished Natasha had set her goals in another direction. The wife of a former Enforcement Agent and mother of a current one sincerely wished constant concern over whether either member of her closest family might not wind up dead at the hands of some criminally-minded goon or self-serving megalomaniac wouldn't be her mental and emotional purgatory for as long as she… and/or they… lived.

Just then the sound of a key turning in the front-door lock caught Trice's attention. Illya, it had to be Illya, though his arrival home was a bit earlier than usual. Taking a deep breath, Trice rose, discarding her novel in the seat of the chair as she did so, and walked into the hallway to greet her spouse. Truth be told, she really needed his steady presence tonight.

Once the door was unlocked and the entry devices properly disabled, Illya turned briefly to the security guard standing behind him on the stoop and nodded briskly.

Though Kuryakin's position at U.N.C.L.E. did not warrant a permanent bodyguard as did Solo's, he nonetheless always received a security escort to and from his home and New York headquarters. And if he was off on some representative task for the Command in another city or country, he was constantly shadowed by a two-man security detail.

The guard nodded in turn to Kuryakin, acknowledging his own dismissal by the Section Chief. Illya passed further into the front entry hall of his home, closing the outer portal firmly and resetting the necessary alarms.

"I'm glad you're home early," stated Trice with just a hint of relief in her voice.

Illya gazed into her face, fully reading the disquiet in her familiar features.

"Natasha called to bid you goodbye then," he observed frankly.

Trice grimaced.

"Please don't say it like that, Illya," she entreated.

Illya walked up to her and kissed her tenderly on the cheek. "Forgive my clumsy tongue, dearest. Even after so many years, English still doesn't offer me the surety of expression of my native language," he furthered with a rueful little smile that caught at Trice's heart.

Trice found herself melting into his welcoming arms, seeking the sure strength of feeling his well-known body against her own, unwinding into the safe refuge provided by laying her head on his solid shoulder.

"Promise me she'll be alright, Illya," she begged this indulgence of her husband, knowing it was a foolish request, a request he couldn't honor.

Illya raised her chin with one finger and shook his head slowly.

"You know I can't do that, Trice," he reminded her in a very gentle tone. "But I can promise you she has and will have every facility of U.N.C.L.E. at her disposal, in her training and her teammates and her gadgetry. She'll do fine, love."

Trice looked into his honest blue eyes and slowly nodded. She took one deep, calming breath and then inquired with a small, embarrassed smile, "Would it be too self-indulgent to give in to the temptation for a before-dinner drink to settle my nerves?"

Illya smiled broadly in return. "Not as long as you agree to let me join you," he countered gamely as he drew a loving arm around her waist and steered his wife in the direction of their dining room.

At the wet bar in the butler's pantry off the dining room, Illya asked Trice what she wanted to drink and then poured out the sherry she requested. Forgoing his more usual libation of iced vodka, he decanted a second glass of the dark liquor. The sweetened oloroso was more saccharin tasting than he liked, but for tonight he thought it important to share even such a small thing as identical cocktails with his wife.

They enjoyed their aperitifs in comfortable silence, content just to be in each other's company. Afterwards they ate a light but delicious supper of butternut squash soup followed by a traditional Cobb salad, both dishes prepared by the incomparable Mrs. Sedowsky. They chose to drink their after-dinner coffee in the living room, each ensconced in a favorite chair.

"Sometimes it's just extraordinarily difficult," spoke Trice as she idly stirred a teaspoon into the hot liquid within the cup that she balanced with her other hand on its saucer upon one knee. "To magnanimously accept that death hovers always so near the ones I love most."

Illya smiled a reflective little half-smile.

"Napoleon insists that death will always hover near all the living until it finally stakes its full claim," he remarked in a somewhat hushed voice.

Noting the introspective quality of her husband's tone, as well as the brooding look in his ice-blue eyes, Trice's love-inspired sixth sense picked up not only on his overall mood, but on its dual cause.

"You are doubly worried, aren't you, darling?" queried Trice, understanding sympathetically displayed in her hazel-green eyes. "First there's Natasha, and then there's Napoleon. You're still troubled about whatever it is that Thrush woman seems able to invoke in him, aren't you?"

Illya sighed.

"It wasn't my intention to burden you with that at this moment, dearest," he acknowledged unhappily. "You have enough to concern you with the possible dangers inherent in Natasha's first real mission."

"You can talk to me about anything, Illya, always," pressed Trice in a soft voice. "Just don't try to hide from me what you're feeling. I want to believe you trust in me more than that. I'm not going to fall apart at the emotional seams and rail at you like a beleaguered harpy because you are as much troubled by your ex-partner's current situation as by our daughter's. I of all people know well there is more than sufficient room in your heart to feel equally for both."

Gazing into Trice's steady and compassionate hazel-green eyes, Illya realized it was foolish to try and keep any of his qualms from her. Foolish and emotionally self-defeating. Her love was sure and sustaining, and had been so for almost twenty-five years. He had never thought to find the calm port in the storm Trice had turned out to be in his life. Her love was undemanding and rock-solid, and had offered him from the very beginning of their relationship a tranquility of mind he had never hoped to have.

In contrast his soul-bonded friendship with Napoleon, though just as unquestionably rock-solid, could never be equated with a calm port in a storm. Rather it was like having an unwavering companion standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you at the tiller in that storm, steadfastly braving the elements with you and keeping your own uncertainties in check because there was someone beside you who you just couldn't and wouldn't disappoint or desert. There was indeed demand in such a relationship: demand to never be less than you could be, to always challenge yourself to do just a little more than that of which you initially thought yourself capable. Though it was never an intolerant or unforgiving demand, it nonetheless made that rapport far more mentally bracing than tranquil.

Illya had found in the wisdom of years that both types of powerful interactions were essential to the continued bounce-back robustness of his spirit. Both made his life worth living. Without the former it was probable day-to-day being would become an exercise in restless frustration, while without the latter such everyday existence would become but lazy monotony. Thus was he grateful beyond reckoning that he had never been forced to choose between one and the other. That his wife had always appreciated his link with his closest friend, and that his friend had always respected his connection with his dearest wife.

"I don't know why it haunts me so much," admitted Illya to his wife, "but somehow I just can't shake the premonition that this woman will permanently break something inside Napoleon. I know it's ridiculous to think that way, know that he's mentally tough and emotionally resilient; yet…"

Illya broke off with another small sigh, this one definitely born of irritation with his own reaction to the Thrush and her unusual ties to his friend.

"Do you think it is her intention to, as you say, permanently break something inside Napoleon?"

"I think," began Illya, brow furrowing as he sought the correct words to properly convey his opinion on the matter, "that she is drunk with new power. Physically drunk with the unexpected potency of her synergy with Napoleon. Mentally drunk with the tantalizing prospect of justifying her father's experiments and proving his theories. Emotionally drunk with the heady opportunity being granted her to become something other than an outcast, both within Thrush and inside herself. The drunk are always dangerous because they become reckless of everything and careless of everyone. And unfortunately it is Napoleon who is directly in the collision path of that recklessness and that carelessness."

"And you are dead-set on forcibly pulling him out of that collision path," stated Trice matter-of-factly. She knew her husband well, knew the stubborn nature of his protective inclinations when it came to his erstwhile partner.

"Kicking and screaming, if I have to," pronounced Illya in his most single-minded state of resolve. "I don't know how exactly to accomplish that feat… yet. But accomplish it I most assuredly will."

Trice placed her cup and saucer down on the nearby coffee table as she rose and walked to Illya's chair. Perching on an arm of that chair, she reached out and took her husband's face within her hands, turning that countenance to hers.

"I recognize that you are doggedly determined no harm come to Napoleon, but darling please do try and keep some perspective in this," she cautioned him sagely. "Remember that Napoleon is shrewd and rather experienced in thwarting those who threaten him."

"Napoleon has always been cavalier about his own well-being," Illya spoke in counterpoint. "He'll take on the entire underworld with all the bravado of a charging bull, and unhesitantly pursue courses fraught with impossible risks, trusting in his instincts alone to keep him in one piece."

"I always thought you admired his resourceful audacity," taunted Trice as she playfully rubbed the ridges of her husband's cheekbones with her thumbs.

"I do admire that in him," conceded Illya, refusing to rise to the good-humored ribbing, "but I also am not going to let it destroy him. I've always had his back and I intend to keep to that plan."

"And I would never dissuade you from that plan," conceded Trice in her turn, allowing herself to respond seriously once more. "Yet surely you will grant Napoleon's instincts are pretty darn good," she added as she leaned in and kissed her husband lightly on the tip on his nose.

"Pretty darn good, no question," stated Illya as he set his own cup and saucer on the surface of the coffee table. "But his instincts are absolutely impeccable," he finalized with a slightly smug smirk, finally relaxing into his wife's mischievousness, "when my considered forethought backs them up."

Trice's amused laugh fully lifted the remaining anxiety from the atmosphere.

"The two of you are quite the pair," she settled the matter certainly. "One wonders what eccentric alignment of the universe brought about such a unique and enduring joining of such disparate personalities."

Illya laughed too, all the strain brought on by the reality of Natasha's first full-on mission coupled with Napoleon's odd involvement with the Thrush technological residual blissfully leaching out of him for the moment at least.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Mrs. Kuryakin," teased Illya as he mirrored his wife's previous action by taking her face within his hands, then charting his own mischief by nipping impishly at various points on her lips, "than are dreamt of in your stiff-upper-lip British philosophy."

"Thank the alignment of the universe for that!" exclaimed Trice as she slid gracefully into her husband's lap to enthusiastically continue their private romantic interlude, all but more pleasurable "pressures" slipping into the background of their minds for the satisfying duration.

* * *

The insistent pounding on the front door of the carriage house in Gramercy Park that Jack called home put the agent in a foul mood. Whoever was trying to draw his attention was being rather rude in the attempt. Slamming shut the lid of the suitcase he was packing and retrieving his Special from its current position on the bedside table, Jack quickly made his way down the open-frame wood staircase from his loft bedroom to the main floor below. He clicked on the display unit for the camera mounted in the outer eaves of his doorway. Recognizing the figure on the video screen, he muttered to himself in Italian as he let the arm hefting his gun fall slack to his side. Only then did he disengage the security locks and pull to his front portal to face his visitor.

"You don't have a doorbell," remarked Natasha Kuryakin matter-of-factly as she made her entrance into the angled entryway.

"No, I don't," agreed Valdar tersely as he banged the door shut behind her and reset all the bolts and alarms. "But you seem to have had no trouble making relentless use of my doorknocker."

Natasha ignored his sarcasm as she casually dropped the valise she was carrying into an available corner of the hallway and then turned to face her partner head-on.

"Why didn't you challenge him?" she demanded fiercely. "God knows, you challenge him on just about everything else. Yet regarding this you just sit there as docile as a damn dormouse!"

"What in the blue blazes are you talking about?" demanded Jack in his turn, his tone equally as fierce.

"At the briefing today," Natasha elucidated impatiently, "when…" She stopped her words abruptly, realizing she was about to use the term Dyadya to reference Napoleon Solo and that such a reference would be entirely inappropriate in the current context. "When the Chief," she restarted her tirade with the replacement of a much more neutral address for their superior, "all but said 'throw him to the wolves if you must', why didn't you make some sort of objection?"

"Madre e tutti gli apostoli," swore Jack, "mi protegge dalla ingenuità di buone intenzioni dei partner di rookie!"  
{Translation: Blessed Mother and all the apostles, protect me from the well-meaning naiveté of a rookie partner!}

"I don't understand Italian and you know it," spat back Natasha, "so do me the courtesy of speaking a language I can actually interpret. Not that it will likely make much difference, since I rather doubt you can explain in any language what went on to my satisfaction."

"I have absolutely no intention of explaining anything to you!" threw out Jack hostilely.

"Just toss it into the black pot marked 'rookie ideals', heh?" she countered gamely. "I'm not letting you off this hook so easily, Mr. CEA of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E."

Jack turned on his heel, intending to return to the packing waiting upstairs in his bedroom, but Natasha grabbed his forearm in a vice-like grip and spun him bodily back around to face her.

"No matter what you may think, Jacques Valdar," she stated as her temper continued to seethe, "I am neither a dewy-brained idiot nor a wide-eyed innocent. I know the score. I know agents die in the line of duty. I know the goals of a current mission and the continued security of U.N.C.L.E. always come first. And I know sometimes lives have to be sacrificed to those ends. But abandoning a partner without even the inference of a fight or an attempt at rescue is another thing altogether."

Jack's gray eyes searched hers for a long moment. Perhaps she did need some clarification. Perhaps she deserved that.

"If the plan were to be compromised resulting in the capture of one of us," he hypothesized, "which of us do you think more likely to survive torture, both physically and mentally?"

"You," admitted Natasha monosyllabically.

"And which of us do you think more likely to find a means of escape from any such enforced captivity?"

"You," spoke Natasha a second time. "But that doesn't…

"That does," her partner finalized. "We are not yet equals in the field, greenstick," he advised her without any hint of condescension. "Perhaps one day, but not just yet. And thus the Chief was only reminding us of this reality in the most direct way possible. I'm not angry with him for that, and you shouldn't be either. This mission has to succeed, and it has more chance to do so if I'm the one put at ultimate risk."

Natasha studied the hard-angled countenance for a long moment, assessing both his conclusion regarding her Dyadya's intention and his own honesty in presenting it. Finally satisfied with both, she drew a long and somewhat shaky breath, releasing the last of her anger as she did so.

"It's just I want…" she began tentatively.

"You want to prove yourself a partner to me equal to that your father was to Solo," Jack vocalized her thoughts with surprising ease.

Natasha bit her lip to insure she kept her tongue from adolescently protesting this adult truth. She definitely hadn't expected him to be able to read her like this.

"You grew up hearing tales of that legendary partnership," furthered Jack, "an adoring witness to the renowned rapport that had developed between those two agents during their days of absolute trust in the field. But we aren't Solo and Kuryakin; we are Valdar and Kuryakin. Thus must we develop our own kind of rapport if our partnership – temporary as it may be – is to work at all."

"So what do you suggest?" ventured Natasha almost timidly now.

"I suggest we both do our jobs as ably as we can," determined Jack. "I suggest in doing just that we permit ourselves to learn where we mesh and where we clash in talents and methods. And finally I suggest we allow that gradually gained knowledge to itself build the proper rapport between us."

Natasha eyed him speculatively for a moment longer. Then she stuck out her hand toward him.

"Agreed," she stated matter-of-factly, as she waited for Jack to accept her outstretched hand in the proffered handshake.

Jack hesitated a second or ten, but in the end took her extended hand within one of his own and shook it firmly.

With that settled, Natasha playfully pulled forward a lock of her partner's dark auburn hair.

"Didn't I hear something about this going redder?" she teased in her imitable way, her easy gesture certainly making Jack's cheeks flame most assuredly redder.

He realized her tactile tendencies were something to which he would need to become accustomed, since it was doubtful his partner would curb that part of her effusive nature in deference to his less demonstrative temperament. Yet becoming so accustomed to casual touches would not be easy for a man as self-protected as he.

"I was going to shower and put in the henna rinse after packing. Which task I was finishing when you so wantonly took advantage of my innocent doorknocker, necessitating my gallant rescue of its faltering virtue," deadpanned Jack.

Natasha laughed lightly. So he did have a sense of humor after all. A bit on the dry side, to be sure, but still…

"You'd best hop to it then, Mr. Valdar," she admonished him good-naturedly. "You know we should be at the airport at least three hours before the scheduled departure of our international flight, and myself I'm simply on pins-and-needles waiting to encounter you with leprechaun-green eyes. Might put a sense of Gaelic mischief into you," Natasha insinuated with a brazen wink.

"If I provide contact lenses to turn your eyes a nice sedate shade of black," countered Jack stoically, "will that take the bawdy edge of Slavic waywardness out of you?"

"Never!" shot back Natasha with a wide grin. "Fiery Russian rebelliousness is too deeply ingrained in my genes."

Jack gave an overly loud mock sigh.

"Pity that," he groused without any true complaint.

"Go make yourself Irish," lightheartedly directed Natasha. "I'll make myself at home meanwhile. You have coffee I presume?"

"Some still hot in the carafe," Jack answered. "It's a couple of hours old though."

"No worries," Natasha assured him. "I like it strong."

"Help yourself then," invited Jack noncommittally as he proceeded back up the stairs to the master bedroom suite. Halfway up the staircase he glanced over toward his partner, who had already made her way into the small open kitchen area and was pouring herself a mug of the steaming dark liquid from the steel carafe resting on the coffeemaker's hotplate. "By the by," he offered coolly, "I never thought you a dewy-brained idiot. A wide-eyed innocent, however…" He made the universal gesture for maybe/maybe not by tilting one hand from side-to-side. Then he resumed his climb to the loft above.

Natasha found herself unconsciously grinning as she drew the cup to her lips. The grin turned abruptly to a grimace with her first sip of the coffee.

"I like it strong," she remarked quietly to herself, "not condensed into battery acid."

Nevertheless she continued to drain the hot drink from the cup as she wandered aimlessly about the main floor of the carriage house, taking in the atmosphere as it were. She paused in her meanderings only briefly as she temporarily put down the mug to unbutton and remove her fur-trimmed coat, dropping it over the back of a hunter-green leather Chesterfield sofa.

The furnishings of this main living space within Jack's carriage house were very conservative bachelor, library-style chic. Dark green and pale gray leather furniture, brushed nickel fixtures, dark-toned wood accents and floors. Nothing too trendy; nothing too antique; nothing too polished; nothing too rustic. The floorplan was open concept: living, dining, and kitchen areas set in one free-flowing great room design, all the spaces pin-neat and without a single accumulation of piled clutter. A door to the right at the back of the lounge revealed a small powder room embellished with a truly exquisite block-design wood vanity topped with a natural stone vessel sink in a very masculine rectangular shape. But it was the matching door to the left at the back of the lounge that raised her curiosity as the low lighting showing through the partially ajar portal caught her eye with its unusually golden gleam.

Pushing fully open the barrier (after having quickly convinced herself it was not prying since the door had not been pulled fully shut), Natasha caught her breath in surprise as overhead illumination automatically flooded the interior. Along several tiers of glass shelving, each fully enclosed with more glass and lit within with what she assumed were low-intensity heat lamps, resided dozens of pieces of antique pottery, small statuary, hieroglyphic papyri and cuneiform tablets all lovingly positioned and carefully displayed.

Natasha made her way almost reverently into the chamber, pausing to examine various pieces behind the glass, silently marveling at each of them. How long she roamed amongst the ancient treasures she really could not specify, but likely it had been at least a half-hour when her quiet and much awed scrutiny was interrupted by a voice from behind her.

"I like to keep up with my original field."

Completely caught off-guard (something that rarely happened to an U.N.C.L.E. Section II Enforcement Agent, to be sure), Natasha spun to face a very different-looking Jack Valdar standing framed in the open doorway. The pomegranate-red hair made him look almost boyish, despite the heavy growth of five-o'clock shadow he was purposely sporting, and the emerald green eyes seemed to de-emphasize the sharp angularity of his countenance by placing focus squarely on its upper half.

"These are magnificent," remarked Natasha, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible as she turned back to the exhibits.

"They are indeed," agreed Jack readily, "though unfortunately none of them are really mine. They are all on loan from various museums and universities, the administrators of which are graciously permitting me to continue my study of them."

"You must be quite valued and trusted as an archeologist for the boards of such institutions to allow you to store these in your home," Natasha complimented her partner.

"Being with U.N.C.L.E. sometimes grants unexpected privileges," responded Jack with a smile that Natasha could only classify as roguish. "Of course showing them the high-tech caliber of my storage and security measures didn't do any harm either."

"Temperature controlled I take it?" queried Natasha as she turned back to the glass cubicles.

"Yes, and air quality controlled as well," noted Jack with obvious pride. "The glass is bullet-proof of course, and completely shatterproof under all but the most extreme circumstances. And each box has the latest of electronic locking devices and alarms, all worked by sound and light waves and quite invisible to the naked eye."

"Impressive," conceded the younger agent with real admiration. "Most of these pieces are Egyptian in origin, aren't they?"

"Egyptian with a bit of Sumerian and a few other ancient Mesopotamian cultures in the mix."

"Was that your field of specialty?" Natasha inquired with real interest. "When you are an active archeologist?"

Jack smirked faintly. Somehow he had never imagined someone could ever be classified as an "inactive archeologist".

"In the main," was however the only verbal answer he gave. "I have somewhat of a natural facility for hieroglyphics and other pictographic written languages. My brain just seems wired toward the interpretation of symbols."

"Must come in handy as an agent when decoding ciphers," came Natasha's offhand comment.

"It does at that," Jack had to agree after a moment or two of silent reflection on the connection of skills between his two lives. "You got a somewhat unprecedented opportunity to peruse these precincts on your own as usually I keep the door to this room locked," he stated frankly, "so to keep Akhenaton from getting into any devilment in here."

"Akhenaton?" questioned Natasha with a blink as she turned back to face Jack once more.

"My Maltese pup," explained Jack.

"You have a dog named Akhenaton?"

"Though the Maltese was regarded by the ancient Egyptians as an animal of beauty sufficient to be worthy of worship, I somehow thought it inconsiderate – since my pup is male – to name him Nefertiti," came Jack's pokerfaced rejoinder.

Natasha smirked.

"Anyhow, he's a black Maltese," Jack furthered, "so naming him after so unconventional a pharaoh seemed rather appropriate."

"Where is Akhenaton at the moment?" asked Natasha with an undemanding smile.

"At the home of a friend. She takes care of him whenever I have to be away."

"She?" Natasha pointedly latched onto that detail of his statement.

"Yes, she," Jack allowed his rookie partner her stab at personal curiosity regarding his private life. "Her name is Alicia, she's a veterinarian, and I've been seeing her off-and-on for two years. Prying done now?"

"For the moment," Natasha nonchalantly shrugged off his sarcasm. "By the by," she ventured without a pause as she reached out and touched the stubble on his chin, "the rogue look suits you. So do keep the beard just on this side of unkempt: more simply unshaven than fully grown-out. Ceallach MacGonigle will thus, I absolutely guarantee you, have Gennadiy Yunusov hopelessly drooling."

Jack blushed clear up to the tips of his ears as he took her hand briefly in his own to remove it from his face.

"I'll get the job done," he remarked flatly.

"We both will," corrected Natasha as she purposely let her eyes hold his. "You're not going into this alone, Jack. Remember that. I'll do my part."

"That part you can't do," verbalized Jack coolly, causing Natasha to smirk at his smooth detachment regarding what obviously was for him an uncomfortable particular of the upcoming mission.

"Well, I suppose not," she countered with just as smooth impassiveness. "Still, I'm not above running interference to make dear Gena pant like a dog from having to try and clear a certain feminine obstacle in his way. What do you say, partner mine, to petulant Nikolaevna being herself rather enamored of her hired bodyguard and jealous enough to attempt to keep Yunusov from the object of his desire?"

Jack thought for a moment.

"Could make him even more determined in his pursuit," he conceded, "and thus result in him becoming sloppy about other things."

Natasha nodded.

"Things like the whole security and transport setup of the arms shipment transfer," the younger agent suggested.

"Or it could make him very anxious to prove his important persona to the object of his desire…" advanced Jack speculatively.

"Thus more than willing to spill a few secrets about his Thrush connections to the oh-so-lusted-after Ceallach," Natasha supplemented the thoughts of the other operative.

"It could definitely work to our advantage," admitted Jack.

"And give you the chance to play hard to get," concluded Natasha with a teasing wink.

Jack squinted, mentally assessing all the possible angles.

"Which is something I presume that, in the presence of Yunusov, you won't be playing with me," he deduced.

Natasha laughed heartily now, a full and throaty sound.

"Not on your life," she taunted. "Nikolaevna is not the subtle type, or hadn't you noticed?"

Jack's eyes looked her thoroughly up-and-down, taking in the laced midnight-blue velvet vest she wore without an underlying blouse, the hip-hugging if knee-length navy leather skirt, and the matching ankle boots with their teeteringly tall stiletto heels.

"I noticed," he assured her. "Sometimes I wonder what possesses the Camouflage personnel when they come up with these false identities."

Natasha shrugged.

"I suspect our Nikolaevna Anuchin, with her fantasy genre take on haute couture, is some computer nerd's nightly wet dream," she put the matter bluntly.

Jack's jaw almost dropped to the floor.

"I swear, greenstick," he announced once he had regained control of his mouth, "you do say the most unpredictable things."

Natasha shrugged once more.

"You'll grow accustomed to it," she pledged him unflappably. "Probably a lot sooner than I'll grow accustomed to where Nikolaevna conceals her gun," she added as she shifted her stance a bit awkwardly.

"I hesitate to ask," uncertainly returned Jack.

"It's in a thigh holster," she informed her partner easily, "only the business end of it faces the inner thigh."

Jack flushed yet again, feeling absolutely ridiculous as he did so.

"Must be uncomfortable," he nonetheless commiserated.

"All to promote the pursuits and protect the principles of U.N.C.L.E.," countered Natasha gamely. "At least it's only a Glock 19."

At that Jack had to laugh heartily, allowing the atmosphere between them to become friendlier than it had ever been.

After his laughter had subsided, Jack advised his rookie partner, "As intriguing as it would be to see how you handled yourself on a long terminal walk wearing that rig, I suggest you lock up the G19. U.N.C.L.E. has arranged everything with the airline in regard to us carrying firearms onboard, but not with us actually wearing them on our persons during the flight. That would rouse suspicions unnecessarily."

"Never so willing to obey an order!" exclaimed Natasha enthusiastically as she unceremoniously reached under the right outside portion of her skirt and unbuckled the thigh holster, catching both it and the semi-automatic weapon it contained in her opposite hand.

Then she moved off back toward the entry hall and her satchel to retrieve the standard weapon lockbox and pack the gear away, leaving Jack blinking in astonishment at her total lack of self-consciousness.

"This mission is certainly going to prove interesting," he spoke under his breath as he moved back into the main of the carriage house as well, closing the door to his specially outfitted study firmly behind himself.

* * *

Napoleon Solo had no real clue why he was still ensconced within the halls of U.N.C.L.E.'s NY HQ at this ungodly hour. There wasn't any current crisis that needed his constant attention, and truth be told he really could use some sleep. Emotional knots, resulting from his assignment of his goddaughter to her first true mission, had left him thoroughly exhausted. Yet he knew he would not sleep if he went home to bed. His mind was just too active and thus he realized he would lie physically stock-still on his mattress while that on-edge mind of his continued to churn at breakneck speed, with the natural result that absolutely none of him would get any rest at all.

As a younger man under similar circumstances he likely would have sought out some sexual companionship for the night to push himself beyond ceaseless mental cognition and into the realm of sated bodily relaxation that could turn off even the most agitated mind. But in his more senior age, though he still pleasantly enjoyed a "friend with fringe benefits" type of relationship with several women of his acquaintance, he was less inclined to use those relationships simply as mental anesthetics. Thus he might as well stay awake at headquarters and pretend there was some pressing business to hold his concentration, even though what he was doing involved nothing more pressing than the routine perusal of various international situations and recent mission reports.

Solo also had no real clue why, after several hours of such routine perusal of international situations and mission reports, he found himself traversing the corridors of U.N.C.L.E. toward the lower level security cells. Particularly toward one security cell: that currently housing Delphina Reikedahl. He nodded perfunctorily to the guards on duty at the monitoring area, who all came to full and formal alert at his approach, and strode purposefully on to the actual cellblock.

Through the Plexiglas, Solo looked at the form slumbering quietly on the small cot. Napoleon had no reasonable idea what drew him to this woman. Though he was more than intimately familiar with the "fringe science" in which Thrush had so liberally engaged over the decades, something in him vigorously rebelled at the possibility of his nervous system being inexplicably connected to hers. Yet just as inexplicably he found himself perfectly aware of the exact moment she came awake under his watchful gaze, though she hadn't moved a muscle or made a single sound.

"_Likely I just picked up on a subtle change in her breathing," Napoleon mentally comforted himself at the disturbing thought of his being able to adjust to her state of being so readily._

After a few minutes, Delphina sat up in bed and set her eyes directly on his.

"Why don't you come in?" she suggested coolly. "Since it would seem you wish to talk to me."

She pulled back the covers on the cot and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The black jumpsuit had been replaced for sleeping by a lighter-weight white one. Another standard issue item to U.N.C.L.E. detainees, and something to remind Napoleon again of her status as an imprisoned foe.

"I don't usually seek out strangers to talk to in the middle of the night," Napoleon interjected awkwardly, not yet making any move to let himself into the confines of the cell.

"Ah, but Napoleon, I'm not a stranger," Delphina reminded him with a small smirk.

"An enemy then," amended Napoleon.

Delphina shrugged noncommittally.

"If you like," she acquiesced to his description of her.

"How could it be otherwise?" questioned Napoleon somewhat brusquely. "You are Thrush."

"Yes, I do admit Thrush are my keepers," she countered with an almost feral smile.

"Keepers?" repeated Napoleon in an inquisitive and speculative tone.

Delphina's hazel-brown eyes swept over Solo's. Eyes like her own; yet not like at all. Despite the physical resemblance between their orbs of sight, Delphina doubted that anyone ever looked into her eyes and saw a genuinely caring, deeply passionate and yet charmingly mischievous soul behind them. Yet such a soul was impossible to miss behind Solo's eyes.

"Do not read too much into mere words, Napoleon," she warned him with an unexpected gentleness. "I am as I am. Words cannot change that."

"And what are you?" Napoleon found himself demanding to be told, though he knew the query intolerably rude and quite impracticable to truly answer.

Delphina considered the question for several very long minutes. Then she said musingly, "I'd rather answer indirectly, by saying what you are to me."

"What I am to you?" puzzled Napoleon as a frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, puckering his forehead with deep vertical lines between his drawn brows.

"Yes, Napoleon. You see I am coming to realize that you are my soul," she dropped the potent verbal bomb straight on target.

"I don't think I have one of my own, not really," she continued. "Perhaps all the experimentation demanded that forfeit of me as well," she hypothesized with an almost arrogant sense of self-deprecation. "Yet when I'm around you, I find myself somehow sharing your soul," Delphina finalized with her gaze set intently and quite assiduously upon Solo, as if conjecturing on the scientific feasibility of such an absolute impossibility.

Napoleon's mouth opened first in astonishment and subsequently in objection, but in the end he said nothing at all. Instead he turned away from the cell and walked back wordlessly through the corridor, forgetting entirely to nod to the stationed guards as he passed them to move fully and gratefully beyond the restrictions of the security holding area.

He wasn't exactly sure what game Delphina was playing. Hell, at this point he wasn't even sure what game he was playing himself. Yet he was absolutely sure, whatever the game was, it was being played on both sides with more intensity than he had ever suspected it would be or could be. And instinctively he recognized it was imperative that he win.

Returning to his office, Napoleon debated only a minute or two before reaching for his new style communicator and connecting to Illya's channel. Kuryakin's response was far from pleased to the full video/audio holograph greeting him when he pushed in the plunger of his special pen to answer its annoying two-tone summons. (It was Solo who had convinced Research that it was apropos to utilize the old electronic acoustic signal on the new contact tool, though while in the field agents could and would set it to a less irritating and far more discreet vibrate mode.)

"Napoleon," Illya grumpily advised the other man as the dual open channel showed his glance over at the alarm clock residing on the side table in his bedroom, "it is three o'clock in the morning. Is the pursuit of sleep at a decent hour anathema to any Number 1 in Section I? Or are you just personally determined to aggravate me whenever humanly possible?"

"What is it?" asked Trice in a drowsy voice from her side of the bed. "Is there some kind of emergency?"

For a moment Illya's heart skipped a beat as he mentally registered the possibility of a seriously ill twist of fate having seized upon his daughter.

"Is there some kind of emergency, Napoleon?" demanded Illya as Solo, through the video link, observed Trice bounce up into a sitting position in bed.

Napoleon mentally chastised himself for his stupidity in not considering what a communicator summons in the middle of the night might appear to signify to the Kuryakin couple under current circumstances.

"No, no emergency," Napoleon hurriedly interjected into the conversation, seeking to quickly allay their fears. "I just had something I wanted to ask you, Illya."

Trice physically relaxed as she collapsed down on the mattress once more.

"Napoleon," she made her own objection to her husband's friend regarding the late night call, "it's 3:00 a.m."

"I know," began Napoleon. "Or actually I didn't… and I didn't think to check either. I'm sorry; it's just…" His voice dropped off, but not before Illya picked up intuitively on the undercurrent of distress in his partner's tone.

"Talk to me, Napoleon," therefore directed Illya, though his own vocal tone was more soothing than insistent.

Napoleon took a deep, steadying breath.

"Illya, is it possible," ventured Solo, the tenor of his voice changing suddenly, making Illya suspect that the words spoken by that voice were in the end altered as well from those that had been originally intended, "for the bio-drone to run on two systems simultaneously? The main on the buggy obsolete software and the redundant on the debugged new?"

"Why would we want to do that?" logically queried Kuryakin as he ran a hand absently through his sleep-tousled hair.

"Just humor me, Illya. Can it be done?"

"Anything can be done with a modicum of effort, Napoleon," replied Illya acerbically. "The more relevant question is: Are you going to provide me a reason to go through the effort?"

"Call it a hunch," was all the explanation Solo offered, "and I learned a long time ago never to disregard my hunches.

"Can you start on the project tomorrow, Illya?" Napoleon requested, though of course his position made it much more than a request.

"You're the Number 1 in Section I," retorted his second-in-command just a trifle sarcastically. "It will mean re-routing a lot of systems to use the redundant bio-drone server…"

"This really is important, Illya," Napoleon assured his friend.

"If you say so, Napoleon," acquiesced the Russian. "We will go over everything that needs to be done tomorrow morning. 9:00 a.m.?"

"9:00 a.m.," agreed Solo. "And Illya…"

"Yes, Napoleon?"

"Thanks, old friend." Relief sounded clearly in the timbre of the smooth voice vocalizing that simple statement of gratitude.

With those words the transmission cut off from Solo's end.

Illya clicked the plunger on his communicator back to the up position, mentally pondering the odd exchange he had just had with his partner.

"What was that all about?" asked Trice as her husband slid back down in bed beside her.

Illya shook his head uncertainly.

"There are more things in heaven and U.N.C.L.E.," muttered Trice as she snuggled closer to Illya to burrow back into sleep.

"Indeed," conceded Illya as he wrapped his arms about his wife and wondered exactly what things in U.N.C.L.E. had set Napoleon's mind off on such an unorthodox course.

* * *

**Act III: Arms for arms…**

The exchange of places between the Section II agents and their Section III counterparts, who had been in South America "keeping up appearances" for the Thrush surveillance of their hired arms assessor and her hired bodyguard, went off without a hitch in Maracaibo. For their parts, the lower section agents were glad to be rid of their public disguises. Both were an inch or two shorter than Natasha and Jack, but in the end that worked out well as the perceived height differential between Anuchin and MacGonigle remained intact. The female Section III had worn a wig to emulate Natasha's long platinum blond hair, and the male Section III had donned a muscle enhancement undershirt beneath his clothes so to imitate Jack's bodybuilder upper physique. These camouflages, considering the fact the Thrush watchers had been keeping their presence understated and thus less than near-at-hand up to this moment, had done their job in giving the two a reasonable resemblance to the actual undercover pair. But now was the time for the ruse to end and for the mission to begin in earnest, a mission much too dangerous to incorporate Section III personnel.

Seamlessly taking up residence in the adjoining two-bedroom suite of the high-class hotel where the Section III pair had been housed for the past five days, Jack and Natasha readied themselves for what they were sure would be the imminent personal introduction of the Thrush contingent assigned to escort them back to the United States. U.N.C.L.E. had used its resources to make it known Nikolaevna's venture in South America was now profitably concluded, and the two Section II agents doubted the Thrushes would let grass grow under their feet in assuring Anuchin was safely in their hands. After all, no Thrush with any wits at all liked to deal with Ospreye's displeasure when one of his orders wasn't followed to the letter.

The partners had checked the rooms and swept them free of listening devices (something the Section III agents had advised them they had done everyday, since it seemed such devices were constantly being replaced by Thrush). Thus they felt safe enough for the moment to talk quietly without resorting to their cover identities.

"We should likely make some public show of ourselves tonight," Jack recommended the next course of action.

Natasha nodded. "I agree. We can make reservations at an expensive restaurant for dinner. Nikolaevna would definitely be the type to celebrate her business successes."

Now Jack nodded. "Good thinking, greenstick," he complimented the younger agent.

"Do you think you could call me Natasha?" she queried somewhat frustratedly of the CEA. "Or even Tash if you like. Many of my friends call me that."

Jack eyed her somewhat smugly as he noted, "I think for the present I should get used to calling you Nikolaevna."

"Nalya," she corrected him.

"What?" he asked, a bit confused.

"It's one of the Russian nicknames for Nikolaevna," she explained to him, "and the one I prefer."

"Wouldn't it be a trifle familiar for your bodyguard to refer to you that way?" he suggested uncertainly.

Natasha shook her head in defiance.

"Not with Nikolaevna hot for his body," she taunted with purposeful bluntness.

As she had expected, Jack looked uncomfortable and she relished the thought she had unsettled him as thoroughly as his reference to her as 'greenstick' always did her.

"She would insist on the presumed intimacy and, as a man in her personal employ needing to stay in her good graces, Ceallach would scarcely be in any position to refuse. So use the nickname you must."

"Nalya it is then," conceded Jack if less than enthusiastically.

Natasha pulled her head downward as she began seemingly searching for something in her bag where it lay open on the bed. In reality it was but subterfuge to hide from Jack her self-satisfied smirk, for certainly Nalya was a better way to be addressed than was greenstick.

* * *

As they entered the elite Ciao restaurant in Maracaibo, Jack had to admit that his partner knew how to turn heads. Hair twisted in an elaborately braided, crown-like up-do, dressed in a high-necked – though completely backless – ankle-length champagne-hued lame gown that clung in all the right places, and shod in matching stiletto-heeled sandals: she shone from the top of her silver-blond head to the tips of her pale gold-painted toenails. She thoroughly dazzled, not just with looks but with charm as well. The minute she addressed the maître d' in that perfectly modulated if less than perfectly fluent Spanish with its underlying twist of a Russian accent (and Jack really needed to study how she did that, managed an accent not her own beneath yet another foreign language), eyes that had initially wandered to her because of her openly sensual beauty stayed riveted because of her natural grace with word and accompanying gesture. Laughter like the gentle tinkling of bells made the watchers smile involuntarily. Here, they surmised, was a woman who knew well how to enjoy life and needed to make no pretensions about doing so. Her ebullient charisma was natural and never constrained for the sake of propriety.

Seated at the best table (for who could grant such a woman anything less?), she ordered a magnum of the best champagne and chatted amiably in English with her impassive, if incredibly built, red-headed male companion as they selected their various courses and partook of them at leisure as they were served. All the while the eyes of a pair of well-dressed men at a conveniently angled table observed them in surreptitious silence.

"It is time to relax now, Ceallach," Nikolaevna chastened her suddenly sullen escort over final espresso. "All is as it should be and the money is in hand to indulge ourselves utterly tonight. I am feeling rather… expansive of mood," she finalized as she placed one expertly manicured, long-fingered hand over one of his that rested on the tabletop.

The man, Ceallach, pointedly removed his hand from under hers. She sighed dramatically.

"Are all the Irish so obstinate of temperament?" she demanded with some vexation.

"I don't know all the Irish," retorted Ceallach with acerbic factualness, the merest touch of a Gaelic accent softly burring his words.

"It's a wonder you know any, with that surly attitude of yours," decided Nikolaevna as she punctuated her own lightly Russian-inflected words with an expressive gesture of hands.

"I know who I want to know," he returned meaningfully.

"While I am just someone by whom you are employed, da?" she teased him just as meaningfully. "Yet combining business with pleasure is not a situation always to be avoided," she all but cooed as she let her blue gaze purposefully hold his emerald green one.

Just then the two well-dressed men from that conveniently angled table made their approach.

"Miss Anuchin?" the shorter and stockier of the two addressed the woman.

"Da," replied Nikolaevna. "Do I know you gospoda?" she asked as she passed her eyes from one to the other of the men.

"No, not us particularly," ventured the same man with an attempt at a congenial smile. The attempt mostly failed as the resultant grin came off a bit shark-like. "But you are familiar with our organization."

"Ob`'asnit'," Nikolaevna returned in her native tongue. "Explain," she translated at the man's confused look.

"You have been hired by one of our… board members to complete an assessment for our group shortly," the man did explain, "in New York."

Nikolaevna waved her hand in dismissal.

"That is not for days," she rejected their current contact with her. "You may tell your employer I will be punctual for the assignment as I always am. If your organization has researched my methods, as I am certain is the case, both he and you know I unfailingly keep to the stipulations of my contracts. Now leave me to enjoy my free time as I please in the meanwhile."

"I'm afraid that is not how it is to be," responded the man simply.

"Ob`'asnit'," repeated Nikolaevna, this time more sternly as Ceallach slowly moved his hand toward the gun resting in the holster inside his dinner jacket.

Nikolaevna raised an open palm toward Ceallach, warning him off drawing his firearm.

The man's eyes crawled over Ceallach contemptuously. "Your bodyguard?" he questioned in a manner that made it clear he believed her companion to be something much more intimate and far less of a bona fide threat than that.

"Da," she answered flatly. "You thought perhaps he was my brother?" she challenged the man's assumptions. "You have not more than three minutes to explain before I allow Ceallach to wipe the floor with both of you. Be aware he easily can. I do not hire incompetent people. And also be aware that he is not the only one of us who carries a gun."

The man laughed softly. "We were told you had style," he complimented the woman.

"Spasibo," she acknowledged the compliment with cool nonchalance. "Now tell me what your employer seeks from me?"

"He wishes only to see you housed safely away from the prying eyes of any authorities who might have reason to disrupt your assignment with our organization."

"Housed safely away?" inquiringly repeated Nikolaevna. "As in locked in some guarded location like a distrusted hireling of little personal merit?"

"You will be well looked after," the man assured her. "Luxuriously looked after, in fact. But I'm afraid there is no room for discussion on this. You and your bodyguard," again the man threw that contemptuous look toward Ceallach, "are to come with us now."

Nikolaevna sighed dramatically, as was her usual wont.

"The skittishness of the administrators of supposedly powerful worldwide organizations never ceases to amaze me," she stated unhappily though resignedly. "Very well, we will come, but first give me the chance to settle the bill for our meal."

"It is already settled," finalized the man with that shark-like grin again, "with the respects of our mutual employer."

"At least he has manners," she noted bluntly as she rose to her feet, Ceallach taking her lead in this, "which is more than I can say for his lackeys."

The barb was meant to sting and undoubtedly, by the grim look on the face of the shorter of the two men, it did. The other had expressed nothing in either word or feature since the beginning of the confrontation, and still didn't.

Ceallach meanwhile hid an amused and impressed little smirk by pausing to wipe his lips a final time on his linen napkin before the foursome exited the restaurant with the three men following in Nikolaevna's magnificent wake.

* * *

Less than an hour later, all four were seated in a private jet set for take-off to New York. Ceallach kept up his stoic exterior while Nikolaevna complained in no uncertain terms, though only in Russian, about the way she was being hustled off under cover of darkness onto an unscheduled flight, all while still rigged out in her unsuitable-for-travel evening finery.

"I speak Russian most fluently, Mlle. Anuchin," finally ventured the taller of the two Thrushes, his perfect English noticeably tinged with a French accent.

Nikolaevna glanced over at him coolly.

"Then you are keenly aware that I am less than pleased with this treatment," she challenged him without a qualm.

From his very relaxed position on the two-seater couch facing her, the taller Thrush smiled calmly and confidently at her. Beside him his shorter companion was busily reading a Venezuelan newspaper and pointedly keeping out of this conversation. The taller Thrush was the man ultimately responsible for the success of this undertaking, and the shorter one was perfectly content with having performed his own task at the restaurant exactly as ordered.

"I am indeed keenly aware," the taller Thrush assured the Russian woman. "But alas, loose ends in business matters must always be tied up as neatly as possible."

"And you are an expert in that necessity?" questioned Ceallach, his eyes appraising the other man without any attempt to hide that scrutiny.

The shorter Thrush, knowing the coldblooded effectiveness of his companion, snorted once rather noisily, but said nothing.

"I do pride myself on my proficiency in that particular field, oui," the taller Thrush acknowledged with his own eyes equally as keen and direct in appraising Ceallach. "I think perhaps I know you, Monsieur…?"

"MacGonigle," Ceallach provided, not so much as an eyelash displaying any inner unease.

"Monsieur MacGonigle," allowed the Thrush. "Though I rather think I might know you by another name."

"You might," speculated Ceallach, his Irish accent shifting not one vowel or consonant out-of-place, "but then again you might be presuming falsely."

"I might at that," the Thrush dropped the issue for the moment. "But I have been less than forthcoming myself, n'ai-je pas? An unforgiveable breach of etiquette in a host. Permit me to redeem myself in that area at least. My name is Islenleque, David Islenleque."

Jack Valdar knew that name, no question. But with complete top-agent aplomb, he kept his cover firmly in place and gave no telltale reaction of his knowledge. After all, Ceallach MacGonigle knew nothing of David Islenleque, the man who was Niles Ospreye's right wing, so to speak.

"Should I claim to be pleased to meet you after you have so cavalierly rattled my client's composure?" demanded Ceallach bluntly.

"Your client has a contract with my superior, and I am only seeking to guarantee that agreement is ultimately fulfilled," Islenleque countered in a liquid voice and with a charming smile.

"I will not be talked about as if I am not present here!" spat out Nikolaevna imperiously.

"She has a Russian temperament," Ceallach warned David with a conspiratorial smirk.

"And I have a Gallic one," forwarded David with an equally conspiratorial smirk. "We shall need, I believe, to find common ground where our hot-blooded dispositions do not clash."

"Good luck with that," Ceallach playfully cheered on the other man as he leaned back in his seat, pushed down the headrest and prepared to nap on the air journey.

"Ceallach!" Nikolaevna chastised from where she sat beside him in a two-seater row of the small private plane, punctuating her verbal rebuke with a smart and self-secure slap to his lower right arm. "I do not pay you to ignore those who harass me!"

Ceallach sat upright once more. "Want me to shoot him?" he questioned laconically.

"No, of course not!" retorted the woman. "As he has said, I have a contract with his employer. Thus I have no wish to upset that employer of his, at least not before I have received my negotiated compensation."

"Then Nalya, I don't see what is my particular role in all this at the moment," Ceallach told her straightforwardly. "You are not being physically threatened in any way, and you admit this man does have some authority to do what he is doing. So what exactly do you want from me?"

"Ya ozhidayu, shto ty oberegayesh' moyu chest' ne meneye strogo, chem moyu personu!" came Nikolaevna's incensed response.  
{Translation: I expect you to guard my honor as least as closely as my person!}

Ceallach raised a quizzical eyebrow at his client. "Is your honor being impugned?" he queried.

"My professional reputation is so being!" she rejoined angrily.

"I'm sorry, Nalya," apologized Ceallach unperturbedly as he leaned back in his seat once more. "There is no amount of money in the world sufficient to cause me to go about defending any woman's reputation, no matter in what quarter that reputation falls."

David laughed lightly at the Irishman's candid statement.

"You don't defend, yet neither will you sully," Nikolaevna voiced acidly in return. "Is that your standard method of operation, Ceallach?"

"I have always found it a most sensible approach," conceded Ceallach before closing his eyes to prepare for his airborne nap.

A flood of Russian furiously escaped Nikolaevna's lips as she unbuckled her safety belt, rose from her seat, climbed somewhat awkwardly in her clingy gown and spike heels over the thrust-out legs of the half-reclining Ceallach, and moved pointedly to an empty row at the back of the small plane. David watched with an amused smile as she, still obviously seething and just as obviously frustrated, settled in purposely separate from the men.

"It seems you have a stymied admirer, Monsieur MacGonigle," he advised the Irishman.

Ceallach shrugged without opening his eyes. "Hazard of the trade. Most female clients tend to want a bodyguard to do more than merely guard their bodies."

David laughed once more. He rather liked this Irishman… or this supposed Irishman, if his suspicions were accurate.

"You are a man after my own heart, Monsieur MacGonigle," he made his case.

Ceallach opened one emerald green eye.

"I rather doubt that, Mr. Islenleque," he countered with a lazy smile before closing that one open eye to settle into sleep… or what passed for sleep.

* * *

Illya Kuryakin sat in the office of U.N.C.L.E.'s North American Section I Chief, Napoleon Solo, as the two men were carefully reviewing the dual setup of the bio-drone the Section III Chief would be supervising into full operation upon his superior's final approval and "take it live" command. Heads bent in concentration over the schematics showing in tandem on each of their computer screens, Napoleon's on that of his built-in desk monitor and Illya's on a laptop positioned upon the surface of the great revolving desk, they spoke in fully business-oriented tones.

"So the issue of the pen communicators using the auxiliary server to access the bio-drone has been resolved?" questioned Solo.

"It took a bit of finagling the system, but yes it is working perfectly in test now," replied Kuryakin. "Whether the tests reflect actuality will be determined once the switch is thrown."

"If you have found it to work perfectly during testing, Illya," Napoleon voiced his confidence in the other man's abilities, "I have no doubt it will work perfectly in actuality whenever that switch is thrown."

Illya raised his gaze above the screen of his laptop to look over at the other man across the expanse of the revolving desk from him.

"Napoleon," he ventured simply, "you still have not told me why it is so important we do this, run the bio-drone off the backup server functioning on the latest software while maintaining primary connection with the main server running an outdated program."

Solo glanced up from his own screen and into the searching blue eyes of his friend.

"It's just something niggling at the back of my mind, something about the fact lucisorqe manipulates light," Napoleon tried to put into words a suspicion that resided more in his gut than his brain.

"The bio-drone makes no use of light," the scientist reminded the administrator.

"Not in its main function, no," conceded Napoleon. "But when a core dump occurs, all the schematics and programming are visually, if momentarily, displayed upon the server monitor through the auspices of light on an LCD screen."

Kuryakin ran a hand through his gray-blond hair, a gesture of intense reflection regarding Solo's own often creatively convoluted thinking. It was a gesture so familiar to Napoleon, it made him smile despite the gravity of the moment. Yet that gravity remained intensely present in the atmosphere of the room. For what the Number 1 in Section I was asking be done to one of U.N.C.L.E.'s most secure internal systems was unprecedented and risky, and both men were well aware of that fact.

"Napoleon, do you have reason to believe Thrush has found a way to initiate a core dump of the bio-drone?" Illya found himself, therefore, directly questioning the man in the main responsible for all of U.N.C.L.E.'s operations.

The Section I head didn't answer and it seemed to the Section III head that he was doggedly evading doing so.

"Even if they somehow managed that herculean feat, they would not be in the right location to capture the results of the core dump," the second-in-command tried to assuage his senior's misgivings. "That can only be done from the server itself. And truthfully, the huge spill of resultant information is displayed upon the monitor for such a minute amount of time, the human eye cannot interpret it. That information will not download to any portable device, and upon entry into the server area film of any kind is automatically exposed, rendering it useless."

"Just keep humoring me on this, Illya," was Napoleon's unsatisfactory response.

Illya raised an eyebrow at this continued avoidance by his friend to provide him full answers.

"I know it sounds a bit crazy," Napoleon finally expanded upon his reply, "but it's something that seems to be emanating from Delphina…" He sighed in exasperation. "I don't know exactly. There is something on the fringes of my consciousness…"

"You are not going to tell me you can read each other's minds now, are you?" demanded Illya skeptically.

"No, no, it's nothing like that," Napoleon settled any speculation that he even considered such a possibility. "And I'm not sure I even believe it has to do with any supposed synaptic connection. Rather it's just one of those feelings in my gut when I'm around her. A frisson of… I don't know how to describe it. Excitement, expectation, perhaps even exhilaration in her that seems centered on the discovery of something, the utilization of something unforeseen to achieve a desired end.

"I don't know. I don't know," repeated Napoleon in definite bemusement, the furrow between his eyebrows deepening with the inadequacy of his verbalization.

"I will grant you our testing on the pure lucisorqe has revealed some remarkable facets to the mineral," Illya forwarded, seeking to relieve the mental tension evident in every line of Solo's bodily posture and facial expression, "much more than previously suspected. It can play havoc with sensory impulses far beyond the perception of the absorption of light. Still, our testing showed no particular capability for lucisorqe to itself retain photographic images, if that is where this is headed."

"I'm not certain where this is headed," granted Napoleon, frankly a bit bothered at Illya's attempt to limit the scope of any of this to what fit neatly within the boundaries of currently established concepts. "Yet I'm also not certain we are talking about photographic images achieved through any conventional method."

"What are we talking about then?" asked Illya as he leaned back in his chair.

"More a form of enhanced sense memory," countered Napoleon, watching Illya's reaction to that bold assertion.

"Something with which you have become personally familiar as of late," summarized the Russian pointedly and rather glumly.

"I don't understand any of this, Illya," admitted the American candidly, noting as he did Illya's disapproval and unhappiness at his continued peculiar bond with the Thrush technological residual. "I really don't. And maybe my intuition really is based on nothing more than complete nonsense being somehow intentionally foisted on me by Delphina. I willingly concede she has the upper hand with regard to this expanded nerve synapse union between us."

This was a huge concession for Napoleon to willingly make, and Illya was both surprised and pleased at his friend's admission of this actuality. He gazed unwaveringly at his one-time partner, trying to fully assess his current emotional state. He so disliked the Reikedahl woman cavalierly yet tenaciously playing havoc with that in Napoleon.

Sensing the particular vein of Illya's current scrutiny, Napoleon smiled wryly.

"This was much easier in the old days," he made a stab at lightening the mood. "Back then I would have simply seduced our Thrush provocateur into bed and wheedled the truth from her under the guise of intimate pillow talk."

Illya permitted his lips to curve upward just at the very corners.

"Yes, so you would have," he readily went along with Solo's boastful claim. "Though as often as not you wound up with less wheedled truths and more bumps on the head by the provocateur's backup muscle as a result of such methods," Illya taunted playfully.

"Ah, but when that happened, you always arrived to take the muscle in hand and check I still was able to think straight after you'd roughly slapped me to consciousness," teased back Solo with one of his disarming wide grins.

"But that was then, Napoleon, and this is now," Illya bluntly encapsulated reality, bringing their conversation back around to complete seriousness. "Our responsibilities are much heavier and our chances for recovery from mistakes much diminished."

Solo sighed. "And our bodies much less reliable and our schemes much more restrained."

"Oh, I don't know, Napoleon," rejoined Illya in his most deadpan voice. "Your schemes are still more audacious than I would judiciously prefer."

Napoleon laughed, the mental pressure and emotional strain almost visibly falling away from him as he did so. His steadfast partner was still firmly beside him, believing in the probable success of his ploys even when he didn't concur with the practicality of them.

"Take this as just another of my audacious schemes then, Illya," Napoleon finalized with the self-assurance of definitive authority, but also with the surety of long friendship. "After all, even you have to agree it is the wiser course to take extra precautions in safeguarding the particular piece of U.N.C.L.E. technology we know Thrush is currently after."

Illya squinted at the other man for a moment, recognizing when he had been backed neatly into a corner, even if that corner wasn't the wrong place to be at this particular point in the game of one-upmanship continuously waged between them.

"I can't argue with that logic," Illya accepted the situation as it stood and let the quest for more clarification as to rationale pass into history for the present at least.

It was at this point that Solo's secretary entered the inner sanctum of her boss' office.

"Sir, you'll find in the current alerts database on your computer an unencrypted version of the message received minutes ago in non-verbal signal code from Mr. Valdar," Jenny stated simply, that statement adequately explaining the reason for her interruption of the Continental Chief's meeting with his Intelligence Chief.

Napoleon immediately punched in the proper access code for the current alerts network, keyed quickly to the appropriate section, and silently read the information displayed on his screen. Then he performed the necessary keystrokes to display that message upon the screen of Kuryakin's laptop, watching in further silence as Illya took the small amount of time needed to read that brief communiqué.

Illya's eyes sought and held Napoleon's once he had finished the missive.

"Islenleque," he uttered pointedly. "Valdar will be tagged as an U.N.C.L.E. agent."

Napoleon nodded shortly.

"He'll be tagged," he agreed with the other man. "Fortunately it appears from Jack's sparse rundown that Natasha is not suspected at all. Let's hope they both can manage to keep it that way."

"And that Islenleque keeps to his preference of being absolutely certain about any issue before acting," furthered Illya. "At least then Jack should be able to accompany Natasha to the warehouse where the illegal weapons are being stored."

Napoleon smirked. "Oh, he'll keep to that preference. He'll want to ascertain exactly what U.N.C.L.E. knows and doesn't know, and allowing Jack a bit of snooping will be part of his self-indulgent technique. Islenleque has all the conceit of the French in his surety of superiority."

"He also has all the guile of the French," Illya reminded his friend.

"And that is why Natasha is going to have to be fully on her game. No extra footholds to compensate for missteps."

Illya audibly sighed.

"I would have preferred her first full-on mission be one less turning on a knife's edge," he freely admitted to his friend.

"Do such missions exist for U.N.C.L.E. Section II Enforcement Agents?" questioned Napoleon straightforwardly, gently if pointedly reminding his one-time field partner of the constant realities of the business in which they both were longtime participants.

Illya's ice-blue eyes again directly caught and held Napoleon's hazel-brown ones.

"No," he conceded, if somewhat glumly.

"It's a career she chose, Illya," Napoleon quietly noted. "You can't cocoon her from the difficult truths of that career. And neither can I."

Jenny cleared her throat in an attempt to regain the attention of the Continental Chief.

"Something else, Jenny?" Napoleon asked his personal assistant as his gaze returned to her.

"That conference call you asked me last week about setting up, sir," ventured Jenny, knowing that with someone else in the office, even though that someone was the second-in-command of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E., she ethically should not and organizationally could not reveal the conference call in question involved a Summit Five protocol. If Solo wanted Kuryakin advised of this fact, it was his prerogative, and only his, to provide such classified details to the other man.

"You've arranged it?" queried Solo, recognizing Jenny was bringing it up at this particular juncture because she needed his okay on the date and time to finalize the security measures, and that all too obviously she didn't have much leeway to accomplish this last piece of the planning.

Jenny nodded.

"But I'm afraid the wee hours of New Year's Day is the very earliest it can be managed," she informed Solo. "If you would prefer a slighter later date, I can…"

"Wee hours of New Year's Day is fine, Jenny," cut in Napoleon quickly.

Jenny nodded again.

"Very well then, sir," she acquiesced to her boss' decision. "I will confirm with all necessary parties."

Jenny made her way out the pneumatic door and Napoleon looked over to find Illya, head tilted to one side, speculatively observing him.

"A pesky matter of certain changes in security clearance," Napoleon brushed aside his friend's unspoken curiosity.

"Nothing of which I need be aware, I presume?"

"Not at the moment," was all the response Napoleon deigned to give before he decisively resumed perusal of the schematics on the proposed bio-drone programming alterations, non-verbally indicating to Illya by such action that they return to the original subject of their meeting.

Trusting in Napoleon's organizational judgment, Illya once more accepted the situation at it currently stood and left resolutely unasked any questions lingering unanswered in his mind.

* * *

Niles Ospreye slipped into his well-appointed office in midtown Manhattan with all the ease of a man accustomed to the accoutrements of wealth, taste and success. His scientific research grant foundation operated as a reputable front for all his Thrush endeavors and had for some thirty-five years. His daytime employees had no clue about his connections with the shadowy supra-nation. In his "day job", he was a respected philanthropist possessed of an overabundance of family money and a personal fascination with technological research.

U.N.C.L.E. had been trying to prove his Thrush association for years, but they had come up empty in every such attempt. Ospreye was a shrewd man who knew well how to swathe his true persona within the cloak of the mainstream of society. And his foundation provided enough financial support for research projects with true humanitarian scope to place him in the eyes of many in the guise of Good Samaritan. Thus publicly Niles cultivated a character of genial goodwill, only revealing the deadly purpose behind that façade to fellow members of Thrush.

As he sat down in the enormous black leather chair before his very modern and spacious glass-and-steel desk, Ospreye's secretary, she of the daytime employee variety, entered the precincts of his office.

"Good morning, Mr. Ospreye," she greeted him warmly. She found, after all, nothing to dislike in her boss. She placed an ebony bone china cup of Brazilian coffee prepared just the way she knew he preferred it, black with the merest hint of sugar, on the desktop with one hand. In the crook of her opposite arm she held several noticeably aged books with sturdy and somewhat scarred brown leather covers. "These are Dr. Reikedahl's original notes from terminated Research Project 72-OA that you requested retrieved from storage. Though that was a project we took up midstream in development, I have confirmed all the material in these dossiers is available, translated into English, on our intranet. Perhaps, therefore, you would find it more expedient to search through the data electronically?"

"Not for my particular purposes, Celeste," he assured the woman with a smooth smile. "I'm more looking for personal annotations than technical text."

"Those are included in the data files, Mr. Ospreye," the efficient assistant pledged the fullness of the company's electronic records.

"The sentences are there, Celeste," he agreed, "but not the way a pen puts emphasis to any particular word, or the way a volume may open almost by itself to a page that was often referenced. I want to feel the essence of the scientist's private viewpoint through these journals."

Celeste placed the small pile of bound notebooks upon his desk as she accepted without further debate his wish to rummage through their timeworn and discolored inked pages. For written words do not hold up as well to the ravages of time as do digitally-stored ones.

"As you please, Mr. Ospreye," she dismissed this peccadillo. "Yet I will admit I am certainly glad the foundation terminated this project in 1977. Reading these notes… Well, if you'll forgive my saying so, Dr. Reikedahl could be accounted as having a great deal in common with Dr. Frankenstein."

"Yes, so we determined," Niles seemed to concur with her opinion. "He was a brilliant man caught in the throes of his own uncompromising vision. That vision blinded him such that he lost all sight of ethical boundaries."

In point of fact Project 72-OA had never been officially terminated. Yet in 1977 – the year Delphina had come into Niles' own bed – that project had simply gone underground, proceeding forward only when Reikedahl had an agenda clear of other Thrush technological undertakings. The scientist's cover association with the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation had been purposely and very thoroughly obscured at that juncture. A good ploy, since it made it possible for Niles to admit he had once funded a project by Reikedahl, but insist that project had been closed down by his foundation for possible ethical violations, with the records of his company bearing that all out nicely.

"The rumors say it was his daughter on whom he experimented," Celeste remarked with seeming casualness as she subtly probed to satisfy her own curiosity with regard to the truth to this tantalizing, if upsetting, bit of gossip.

"Not rumors," Niles shook his head, for all the world like a man profoundly disappointed in one of his fellows. "His daughter was indeed the transformation subject."

Celeste visibly shuddered.

"She was born with a particularly severe form of albinism," continued Niles in that oh-so-believable tone of human commiseration. "Perhaps that was the true cause of Reikedahl's scientific blindness."

"A tragedy," came Celeste's own form of human commiseration. "What happened to her?"

Niles shrugged.

"I never heard," he lied smoothly. "And of course the foundation could not risk its reputation by attempting further contact."

"Of course not!" agreed Celeste readily. "That might have proved the ruination of your life's work."

"Yes, exactly," affirmed Niles. "Still," he verbalized with a very credible sigh of regret, "I do wish sometimes I had made it a personal mission to find out."

"Do not fret on it, Mr. Ospreye," counseled Celeste gently. "The welfare of the entire human race is not your responsibility. And you truthfully already do so much to provide for the possible betterment of the human condition through the auspices of this foundation."

"Thank you, Celeste. The sentiment is greatly appreciated."

Celeste smiled warmly upon her boss before exiting the office and returning to her own desk just outside the portal to Ospreye's inner sanctum.

The Ospreye Technical Research Foundation had become publically attached with Research Project 72-OA in, as not coincidentally noted in the coding, 1972. That was the year Niles, still new to Thrush but already highly regarded, had suggested the philanthropic organization as a shield for various Thrush technical operations. And he had possessed the personal money necessary to bring his suggestion into reality.

However, as Celeste had noted, the official documents from Research Project 72-OA contained material from prior to that association. These journals went back to the very beginning of the project, to the initial concept that had caught Reikedahl's technological imagination. Therefore, after picking up the first book, the opening few pages through which Niles leafed were all dated within the year 1961. That was the year after Delphina's birth, and it was such event that had served as the impetus for the genetic scientist's initial interest in a particular form of research.

The text was all written in Norwegian and Niles own fluency in that language was more conversational than perfected in the form of the written word. Thus he had to re-read each passage several times to be sure of his mental translation.

_In the course of working on solutions to reduce or eliminate physical divergences from the norm resulting from the genetic condition oculocutaneous albinism, I have discovered some intriguing possibilities with regard to neural tendencies. I realized from the start that biochemical manipulations would likely aid in realigning physical makeup to a more standard set. And bioelectric pulses to achieve such permanent chemical changes always seemed a workable idea to pursue. What I did not think on were the realities of associated bio-magnetics. Yet now those realities present me with a hypothesis that goes far beyond the biological exploitations needed to diminish albino peculiarities._

_The gist of the discovery rests on the fact that the five senses have polar regularities through which constant points the nervous system processes received data. While the irregularities provide for the individuality of a bio-magnetic profile, it is the regularities that shape the uniformity of particular sensory input._

_This causes me to ponder: Since such regularities exist, could they not be expanded beyond current bodily boundaries? When combined with biochemical and bioelectric input, could not these bio-magnetic regularities make of the synapses of the brain navigable seas through which a vessel of sensation could sail from one being to another?_

_Such sensory pathways could provide a possible means to interconnect human beings along these neural conduits. Not to share the complication of thought, but rather the simplicity of sensory reaction to our physical environment._

Scribbled in the margins on the page was a much more personal observation.

_Think on it. A world of humankind where any of we separate beings could process sensations beyond our own. Perhaps a means to allow the deaf to hear and the blind to see. Or for those with the inconvenience of a common cold to have normal experiences of smell and taste._

_Perhaps indeed by such means the innate physical separateness of human beings could be mitigated as we all came to experience the wonder of joint sensory communion. And what might such communion allow with regard to the removal of inbred prejudices? How much easier might it be to minimize the importance of superficial differences if indeed we could physically perceive the world through another's sensory input?_

Yes, Dr. Kjell Asbjørn Reikedahl, like most scientists starting out on a path of fresh discovery and stumbling upon a new mission in life, had been something of an idealist. In later years this idealism had turned into more a pragmatic drive geared entirely toward positive proof of his theories. No doubt his introduction to Thrush's goals, something that came out of the never-ending search for money to continue his research, had been at least partially responsible for this manifest change in personality. What Niles did know without the slightest doubt is that anyone would have been hard-pressed to describe as any sort of idealist the Reikedahl he had himself first met in 1972. That scientist had seemed totally focused on achievement for achievement's sake. Sort of like the mountaineer who, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, replied: "Because it's there."

Yet this particular idealistically musing page was dog-eared, as if returned to often. And the ink on the margin-written comments was much smudged, as if a finger had traveled across it many times. Had old idealism remained hidden in the driven scientist Niles had come to know?

Niles leafed through the remainder of the first journal, pausing here and there to read a notation or two, but nothing further captured his attention. He picked up the next notebook and under an entry dated during the spring of 1966, he found something to again pique his interest.

_Proposed specimen pool subject: U-s2#1_

_Base data: Male. Age 33. General physical and mental health excellent. No congenital conditions._

_Reasons for proposal of subject: Intense appreciation of the pleasures of the senses suggests vigorous development and fine attunement of the polar regularities within bio-magnetic sensory pathways. Highly intelligent with a creatively resourceful turn of mind; thus overall brain synapses potentially as equally honed. Idealism-generated self-discipline should provide for the exclusion of sensory input becoming dangerously unmanageable._

The supposedly blind-code for the candidate did not blind Ospreye to that candidate's identity. The code itself was actually a Thrush convention signifying U.N.C.L.E. Section 2 Number 1, i.e., Napoleon Solo at that point in time.

What wasn't mentioned in the official notes was that, from Thrush's viewpoint, the proposed subject had possessed the additional qualifications of being CEA of U.N.C.L.E.'s North American division with the likely prospect of becoming chief of that division in time. (Assuming of course he survived long enough to be promoted into any such position.) The possibility of having in future some tool or contrivance to use against a highly placed enemy had been something of which Thrush had heartily approved.

What also wouldn't be found in these notes was how vehemently Reikedahl had pressed to have Solo accepted as the subject for those experiments. Thrush had forwarded about a dozen candidates, all with an eye toward providing the organization some underlying benefit. Reikedahl had personally pegged Solo from that group and been doggedly insistent on that selection. The scientist's persistence in being absolutely guaranteed his own way in this had been mildly surprising, but the members of the Thrush hierarchy hadn't pondered overmuch on it. Napoleon Solo as the specimen pool subject had suited their designs admirably.

Niles relinquished his perusal of this journal and started on another. Under the year 1971 was logged the first entry regarding what was referenced as the "transformation subject".

_Transformation subject: T-Sf#0_

_Base data: Female. Age 11. General physical and mental health excellent. Severe congenital form of oculocutaneous albinism resulting in lack of pigmentation to skin, eyes and all bodily hair. However, no significant loss of vision due to condition._

_Comments: Initial experimentation will concentrate on skin and eye pigmentation alterations through biochemical, bioelectric and bio-magnetic means using base components from the specimen pool in conjunction with natural uses of these means in the onset of puberty. Sensory synaptic amplification expected as auxiliary to these alterations, with that amplification background linking specifically to the specimen pool subject._

Heavily circled text of a less technical nature stood out on an otherwise clear portion of the page.

_U-s2#1: Charming. Sociable. Empathetic. Uncharacteristically optimistic for one in his profession._

Why should these personality traits of Solo be of any importance in the realm of experimentation with regard to sensory amplification and interconnection? These were not quantifiable scientific factors. What purpose could they serve?

Niles swallowed hard as his mind grasped the truth. These traits would serve to make it a more pleasurable experience for the transformation subject to sensorially link with the specimen pool subject. That in turn insuring the transformation subject didn't pull away from that link, but rather would allow herself to connect strongly with the specimen pool subject. And that transformation subject, T-Sf#0, i.e., Thrush Scientific Force No Numeric Designation, of course decoded to none other than Delphina Reikedahl.

Harrumphing a bit noisily, Niles rummaged through more pages in the leather-bound volume before him. His attention was captured by an entry dated early in the year 1972.

_Having considered all angles of the proposed sensory connection between transformation subject and specimen pool subject, I have ascertained that training in strict mental discipline would be beneficial to the transformation subject. While connecting to another's sensory input through a shifting paradigm should not cloud the brain, the possibility of an actual blending of such input could render such impulses confusingly intense and thus over-stimulate the sensory synapses resulting in psychological, psychiatric or even physical debilitation._

_Mental barriers could provide resistance to such blending when necessary. Thus will I commence training the transformation subject in disciplined cerebral control to circumvent any possible vulnerability._

_Initial exercises in such techniques of mind management will focus on the achievement of concerted physical dexterity. Tricks of sleight-of-hand, as they are known, pinpoint concentration with regard not only to necessary bodily movements and associated sensory input, but as well in maintaining a general attitude that "fools" others so that those bodily movements go both sensorially and mentally unobserved._

Delphina had surely learned all those lessons well. She could school her face and body to leave unexpressed whatever she would. She could perform minute manual actions with completely undetected subtlety. And she could control her mental and emotional reactions seemingly at will. It was a facet of his søte prøveversjon that Niles had to admit disconcerted and fascinated him in equal measure.

Glancing down at the journal once more, Niles espied a very faded note written sideways along the inner binding between the two pages where the book was currently open; thus all but merging blindly into the crease.

_For jeg vil gi deg en ny verden, ikke stjele den gamle fra deg._

Niles blinked. The Norwegian words reached across the years to him, like a hand attempting to twist his heart into a different shape.

With arrant Thrush single-mindedness, he resisted the claim of those words as he continued through the remaining notebooks, reading passages of uncomfortably detailed description involving the scores of medical procedures Delphina had undergone over the years. Transformation was indeed an adequate summation of that to which she had been subjected in her father's quest for… For what exactly? An enlightened dream? Or a re-imagined nightmare?

In the end, after all his determined searching for surety that he – and Thrush – could in fact trust Delphina Reikedahl when she was in close contact with Napoleon Solo, all that stayed with Niles Ospreye were those long-faded and all-but-hidden words…

_For I would gift you with a new world, not steal from you the old._

* * *

The main warehouse was neat as the proverbial pin, its cavernous interior efficiently divided into multiple storage areas separated by temporary metal walls that slid into place on wheeled tracks. Sealed crates of merchandise were piled high in most of the areas, while several of the smaller sectioned spaces were being used for more administrative purposes, evidenced by a few desks setup with phone and computer hook-ups. The place was obviously well maintained, the air fresh and the floors swept.

Nikolaevna Anuchin had already decided she did not like the persnickety little man in charge of the arms delivery side of this operation. Thus, after taking in the cleanly atmosphere of the workplace, she commented snidely to Gennadiy Yunusov, "I must compliment the housekeeping skills of your merry band of followers."

Gena turned to face the woman, a sour expression leaving no uncertainty as to his own opinion of her. She may have possessed myriad skills in the workings of numerous armaments, but he had always found such excessively confident, exaggeratedly independent, exceedingly outspoken and exhibitionistly sensual women annoying in the extreme.

"I suppose in your line of work you are more accustomed to working out of hidden haylofts in grimy barns," he baited with a wolfish smile.

Nikolaevna leaned in close to the slight man, her height overtopping his by a couple of inches.

"I am accustomed to the best of everything," she insinuated, pointedly letting her eyes glance over at Ceallach MacGonigle where he stood not far from the pair engaged in this sarcasm-coated conversation.

Gena's wolfish grin morphed into a smug smirk. Of course he had taken immediate notice of the magnificently muscled Irishman employed by the Russian arms expert as her bodyguard. And just as immediately the woman had taken notice of his notice. And it irked her. It obviously irked her. And that got Gena to thinking that she had less intimacy with the physically tempting Ceallach than she would ever willingly admit. In fact, Gena was himself willing to bet there was no sexual intimacy whatsoever between the two, something which buoyed his own confidence in assuming he could and would corral the Irishman's "corporal charms" for himself.

"Which is why I'm sure you'll appreciate your association with my organization," put in David Islenleque, in an attempt to defuse the situation. Though he found completely amusing the idea of the Russian antithetical pair competing, like dogs over a particularly choice bone, for the private attentions of the blasé Irishman, he – and Thrush – had no time for such sexually instigated attempts at one-upmanship.

Nikolaevna set her ice-blue gaze coolly upon David.

"We shall see, Monsieur, we shall see," she flatly countered his statement.

She and Jack had spent three nights and two days ensconced in the luxurious confines of a spacious home in what had remained an undefined location, though it definitely had been within the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-state area. This morning they had been driven, housed the entire trip within the back interior of a closed van, to this warehouse complex. Security had been tight and, if it wasn't for the fact the disguised agents already knew the location of this warehouse from U.N.C.L.E intelligence, Natasha had to admit she would have been hard-pressed to pinpoint that location by simple extrapolation alone.

Among the ranks of Yunusov's purportedly non-English speaking henchmen that provided discreet security throughout the warehouse grounds, Natasha had already recognized both U.N.C.L.E. agents Kyle Walters and Alfred Van Niels. One of the laborers lugging crates into the specific areas being designated by a supervisor was unquestionably Pedro Arquas. The sole member of the infiltration team she hadn't yet spotted was Laura Beckstein.

Natasha knew Jack would have made all these same observations, most likely before she herself had.

"You employ many a tough-looking boyo," remarked Ceallach casually to Gena. "I am assuming one would find them all armed?"

Gena smiled warmly upon the Irishman. "All but the day laborers," he acknowledged. "We like to insure our privacy."

"Privacy has its merits," agreed Ceallach readily, perhaps purposely letting a hint of innuendo inhabit the words.

"And speaking of privacy," Nikolaevna huffed her way back into the conversation, "there is a place nearby for myself and my bodyguard to stay, da? A daily trip, such as that this morning from our current accommodations to this place, would prove most frustrating in very short order."

"There are temporary living quarters in an adjacent building on the grounds," supplied a woman who had made her way into the area just in time to catch the ending query. "They are generally used by whichever of our watchmen we assign for the duration of a merchandise transport scenario."

Nikolaevna Anuchin nodded to this woman that, as Natasha Kuryakin, she recognized as Laura Beckstein.

"I want to speak to you, Mr. Yunusov," Laura focused her attention squarely on the Russian Mafia boss, "about dismissing our watchmen for a week and instead installing your own security force. This isn't standard procedure and…"

"Mademoiselle," interrupted Islenleque with smooth charm, "this is a government-related shipment. So you understand the need for absolute secrecy, n'est-ce pas?"

"Perhaps, but…" Laura re-commenced her protest, her attention now focused on Islenleque.

"I'm sure I can explain it all to your satisfaction, Mademoiselle…?" David paused with his voice held on an upward intonation, thus emphasizing its inquiring note.

"Drexler, Eloise Drexler," obligingly supplied the woman who was Laura to that non-verbal query. "I'm the security administrator for the property management company that owns this warehouse."

"Ah, a very important position, pour être sûr," complimented the Frenchman, "and one which definitely guarantees you the right to full explanations. Please allow me the private pleasure of supplying those explanations to a woman as efficient in business details as she is eye-appealing in those of a more sensory nature."

Islenleque smoothly took hold of Eloise's arm and led her away, speaking to her in seemingly earnest and undeniably complimentary tones the entire time.

Ceallach smirked. "I'd wager that Frenchie has kissed the blarney stone more than once," broached the Irishman with a bold wink.

"I wouldn't take that bet," countered Gena with a bold wink of his own.

"Nekotoryye pari nadyozhneye, chem drugiye," spoke out Nikolaevna with a dangerous glitter in her eye as she grasped Ceallach proprietarily by the arm.  
{Translation: Some bets are surer than others.}

"Indeed," granted Gena with an equally dangerous return glitter in his own eye.

"I should begin at once my work in the assessment of the stored arms, Mr. Yunusov," Nikolaevna re-directed the discussion with saccharin sweetness.

"Oh course, Ms. Anuchin," responded Gena in a voice as equally and falsely honeyed. "I will show you the firing range where you may perform any necessary testing on the equipment. But you, and your bodyguard as well," Gena suggested as his eyes returned to Ceallach, "must call me Gena."

"I suppose it would do no harm to permit you to call me Nalya," uttered Nikolaevna with a selectively odd turn of phrase.

Gena raised an inquisitive eyebrow in Ceallach's direction.

"Ceallach," replied the man in question. "Never Kelly if you want to keep your liver safe and sound."

"I am rather fond of my liver, though I admit to viewing with more affection certain other portions of my anatomy," joked Gena with a mischievous smile that caused Nikolaevna to roll her eyes most melodramatically.

"Conduct us to the range, Gena," she pressed. "I want Ceallach to perform a safety sweep of the area before I start testing."

"That really isn't necessary," Gena informed her.

Nikolaevna shrugged.

"He will do it anyway," she defied coolly. "It is what I pay him to do."

"Is that all you have to pay him to do?" bantered back Gena suggestively.

"Mind your manners, Gena," chastened Ceallach in a nonetheless amused tone.

"Do not take offense moj dorogoj Ceallach," apologized Gena. "I just wanted to be sure."

"Don't get too sure, moj dorogoj Gena," Nikolaevna made a point of warning the man.

"Don't you get too sure either, moya dorogaya Nalya," Ceallach made a subsequent point of cautioning the woman.

This left Nikolaevna to bite her lip in anger while Gena pulled his into another smirk as he guided the jealous arms expert and her hunky bodyguard to the firing range.

* * *

Napoleon Solo was dressed and ready for the New Year's Eve bash he would be attending this evening. Of course he would be obliged to leave the festivities early since the Summit Five conference call he had asked Jenny to arrange was set to begin at 2:00 a.m. New York time. Yet would he still be able to enjoy dinner and some dancing, as well as a midnight toast to the New Year, before needing to cut short a late night of celebration for an early morning of business.

Ostensibly double-checking with Jenny regarding all the security protocols for the Summit Five is what brought him back to HQ before picking up his date for the party. Yet somehow while there he decided upon a short visit to Delphina's security holding cell.

From an IPod one of the guards in the monitoring station was playing rather loudly, the twangy notes of a country tune drifted down the cellblock as Napoleon walked through the secured area. A pleasant smile curved the mouth of the Thrush technological residual as he made his approach.

"You look quite dashing, Napoleon," she complimented the man decked out in formal tuxedo who entered her cell.

"There was a time," responded Napoleon with a ready smile of his own. "Now, however, I believe I have to be content with looking well-groomed."

"Don't sell yourself short," she admonished him gently. "Prerequisite attire for a New Year's Eve fete I take it?"

"You take it correctly," he affirmed, amazed at how easy it seemed to talk to her about the innocuous minutiae of his life.

"What are you doing here then?" Delphina questioned with amusement. "Surely some lucky lady is anxiously awaiting your escort?"

Napoleon chuckled gamely.

"Lucky, I don't know," he bantered back. "And anxiously awaiting, I rather doubt. But then I am quite a good dancer if I do say so myself, and the lady in question does very much enjoy dancing."

For a moment, no longer than the briefest of breaths, Delphina's eyes gained a faraway look of longing. That longing flared and then was extinguished in a flash, but not before it had registered fully with Napoleon.

The music from down the hallway had shifted into the tones of the Johnny Rodriguez song "Dance with Me Just One More Time".

Napoleon smiled.

"Well, it's an old chestnut," he joked in reference to the tune, "but then so am I. May this old chestnut have the honor of a dance, Ms. Reikedahl?" he furthered with an elegantly polished bow to Delphina.

Delphina's face hardened.

"I can't," she brusquely reminded him. "It's nothing more than noise to me. I can't put the rhythm together."

"It's just a waltz beat, Delphina," Napoleon reassured her soothingly, "slow and steady. Let me put it together for you."

And with that he tapped his left ear meaningfully.

Delphina blinked, moving her hand to her own left ear in confusion. Then understanding filled her eyes as his meaning became clear to her. She removed her earcuff, dropping it softly on the bed before she moved into his arms for the dance. Deaf to world around her, her aural nerves connected with his and suddenly she was hearing the music through his ears. And she was dancing! No, **they** were dancing, hearing as one.

Within a sea of shared sound, they floated upon a wave of sensory communion, the feeling as strongly intoxicating as the taste of effervescent champagne and as sweetly calming as the tenderest of touches.

* * *

One was never sure as an U.N.C.L.E. Enforcement Agent how exactly you would wind up spending New Year's Eve. Still, sitting in the utilitarian living room of a warehouse complex's watchman living quarters sharing out of cheap acrylic flutes an outrageously expensive bottle of Dom Pérignon champagne with a high-ranking member of Thrush New York was certainly not a situation in which Natasha Kuryakin had ever imagined finding herself. But then of course at this moment she was not U.N.C.L.E. Enforcement Agent Natasha Kuryakin, but rather independent arms expert Nikolaevna Anuchin, contract hire of Thrush.

"More champagne, Mlle. Anuchin?" questioned David Islenleque with smooth politeness.

"Bastard Thrushie Frenchman is trying to get me drunk," Natasha mentally cautioned herself .

"You may as well call me Nalya," Nikolaevna verbally corrected his address of her. "Since I am allowing that izvorotlivomu russkomu podlyetsu to so refer to me, I see no reason I should not allow the same privilege to one with your gracious manners, Monsieur. And yes, I believe I will have more champagne," she finally answered his actual question as she extended toward him her all-but-empty plastic glass.  
{Translation: slick Russian lowlife}

"I consider it a privilege that you should allow me to call you by your nickname, Nalya," he eased into this new familiarity between them as he poured more sparkling wine into her synthetic goblet. "And you must call me David."

"David," she acknowledged as she raised her now full glass to him before drinking readily from it.

"I also consider it a privilege that you acquiesced to sharing this impromptu New Year's libation with me," David remarked with his most charming smile.

"A toast to usher in the New Year should always be shared with a pleasant companion," she returned his smile with equal charm.

"Je suis d'accord," he assured her. "However, I had thought your preference for such a companion would be your bodyguard."

Nikolaevna shrugged expressively.

"He preferred to usher in his New Year in the company of a different companion," she admitted ruefully.

"Then he is a fool, to forego the company of a lovely woman for un tout autre genre de compagnie," David complimented her as he brought all his practiced suavity to the fore.

"I remain unconvinced as to his actual preference for 'un tout autre genre de compagnie'," she noted coolly, "and become more and more certain he merely wishes to remind me I am nothing to him but an employer. Ceallach is a very independent man."

"How long has he been in your employ?" probed David.

"Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter," Natasha's private thought shot readily into her mind as she took what appeared to be a very healthy swallow of the wine.

"I hired him but a few weeks prior to my Venezuelan endeavor," Nikolaevna answered straightforwardly. "But he came well recommended, and I've had no reason to quibble with his actions. His professional actions, that is," she clarified bluntly.

"By whom did he come so well recommended?" pressed David with practiced nonchalance.

Nikolaevna permitted herself to eye him disapprovingly.

"Come now, David," she lightly chastised him. "We are neither of us innocent to the ways of the backstreet milieu in which we operate. I could well ask by whom was I well recommended to your organization, but we both know that would be a foolhardy and rather perilous question. Those who serve as guaranty in such matters have no names and no faces; yet are we sure enough in their whispered grapevine to seek out none."

"There are times when it is more foolhardy and even more perilous not to seek out those names and those faces," David counseled, "as possible insurance against all those whispered 'recommendations'."

Nikolaevna quirked one blond eyebrow at him.

"You are attempting to forward in a not very subtle way that I should be leery of Ceallach?" she cornered him.

Now it was David who shrugged.

"Few in our world are as they appear to be," he responded less than straightforwardly.

"I know he has a somewhat impressive history of impulsive violence, if that is where you are heading with this, David," returned Nikolaevna. "And that his intensely opinionated persuasions have often overridden all other aspects of his life."

"His association with the more rabid underground sects of Sinn Fein is of no particular moment," David concurred. "Though you may find, Nalya, that a man with strong emotional ties of one kind or another can seldom be counted on beyond the limits of those ties. Still, where I am heading is in another direction entirely."

"And what direction would that be?" queried Nikolaevna with seemingly only mild interest.

David sipped intently from his wine before providing any reply.

"Have you ever considered that perhaps his whole purpose in accepting the post as your bodyguard was to bring certain doings to the attention of a law enforcement group?"

Nikolaevna snickered. "As if he would want any such group on his own tail."

David shrugged again.

"He might be in a position of immunity, as it were," the Frenchman further suggested.

"Immunity?" questioned Nikolaevna with another raised eyebrow.

"If he was part of the group in question," David ventured further.

At this particular suggestion however, Nikolaevna only threw back her head and laughed openly and fully.

"Oh David, you play with me," she accused him once she had gained control of her mirth. "You suspect my wayward and strong-willed Irish rebel of being a dutiful and obedient enforcer of law and order? I would more suspect the man of being a goat."

"Ah, but in folklore, my dear Nalya, the devil is often portrayed with the horns and hoofs of a goat," David reminded her sagely.

"And Ceallach is the devil?" she teased, having seemingly abandoned all seriousness in this conversation as she again drank deeply of her champagne. "Well, I do agree he sometimes presents about as much politesse as the devil."

David's grin, charming as it was, was nevertheless filled with dangerous teeth.

"Such loyalty is to be commended," he noted simply.

Nikolaevna's facial expression became blank and distant.

"My father was, by the accounts of all who knew him, an extraordinary man," she veered the exchange off in what might be characterized on the face of it as an unrelated course. "When the Soviet Union was pulled to pieces by the forces of politics and necessity, he remained what most would reckon as commendably loyal to those government politicos he was sure could fit the pieces back together again. It garnered him nothing but a dishonorable dismissal from his military post and years of hopeless dreaming from the depths of poverty. Thus myself, I do not believe in loyalty, to anyone or to anything," she enunciated her own position clearly.

"Then it seems when the time comes that I fully make my case against Monsieur MacGonigle," David finalized smoothly, "he will not be assured of your personal intervention in his behalf."

"I owe him nothing but the money I pay him for his services," Nikolaevna put the matter bluntly.

"A most sensible way to look at things," David commended.

"I am always a most sensible woman," confirmed Nikolaevna with a devastating smile. "And, since I am so, I will remind you that I owe you nothing other than the services I myself monetarily contracted with your employer to provide your organization."

David smiled that charming and dangerously-toothed smile again.

"I do believe we understand each other very well, Nalya," he declared as he raised his plastic glass to her in mock salute.

* * *

Natasha heard Jack noisily enter the watchman's quarters they were sharing. Recognizing the uncharacteristic racket as a signal her partner had something he wished to communicate to her, she got up out of bed and made her way into the living room, pointedly clicking on the overhead light. They were both keenly aware they were under constant surveillance and thus knew any mission conversation between them had to be concealed by whatever means the moment provided. Those means at this moment apparently consisted of Jack as Ceallach pretending to be very, very drunk.

"Well, if it isn't the Czarina herself," slurred out Ceallach upon seeing her. "Waiting up with green-eyed tension, my Ruskie muirnín?"  
{Translation: darling}

"Most certainly not," she, as Nikolaevna, corrected him sternly. "Your drunken ruckus stirred me out of a sound sleep."

"I don't believe you, mo beach banríon éilitheach," he challenged as he got up very close to her, speaking right into her face. "Jealousy reeks like a cheap perfume from all your pores."  
{Translation: my demanding queen bee}

"Still a more subtle fragrance than the eau de whiskey that reeks from yours," bantered back Nikolaevna as she pointedly waved one hand before her face to clear away the odor of Ceallach's alcohol-soaked breath and body.

"A scent you would nonetheless very much like me to smear into yours by every intimate method possible," he countered as he pinned her against a nearby wall, brazenly nuzzling her neck and thus placing his lips close to one of her ears.

"Something more going on with this shipment," Jack whispered clandestinely into Natasha's right ear. "Yunusov complained about being saddled with an unwanted responsibility this time around."

"Islenleque's pegged you," Natasha took advantage of their relative positions to quickly whisper back into Jack's own right ear before Nikolaevna firmly pushed at Ceallach's shoulders with the heels of her hands, thus forcibly moving his swaying body away from her own.

"Approach me again when you're sober and less inclined toward crudity, Ceallach," she drily admonished her bodyguard with truly regal aplomb. "Until you can do that, I'll go to my bed without your intoxicating company."

And with that, Nikolaevna stormed off to the first of the three bedrooms, slamming the door solidly behind her. Since it meant finding the dexterity to turn a doorknob and push open a shut barrier, Ceallach abandoned any attempt to propel his unsteady body either after her into that first bedroom or into another of the bedrooms. Instead he wove his way on unsteady legs toward the sofa and collapsed there in a seemingly inebriated sleep.

* * *

_...continued in Part 2: Act IV..._


	3. Part 2: Act IV

**Act IV: Dancing with the one that brung ya…**

As she tightened the belt to her robe, Trice Kuryakin took stock of who had just rung the bell to her home at this ungodly hour by peering at the monitor screen in the entry hall. Then she walked the few remaining steps to the main door and opened it to Napoleon Solo, gaze flashing quickly over his face to determine if he was the harbinger of bad news. Though he looked somewhat stressed, she didn't note in his familiar features the sorrow he wouldn't have been able to successfully hide had this early morning visit concerned a mishap befallen her enforcement agent daughter. Such a misfortune would have been reflected unmistakably within the hazel-brown depths of Solo's expressive eyes. So she released the breath she hadn't even realized she was holding and pulled him gently into the confines of the hallway, his bodyguard as ever close on his heels.

"Let me guess," Trice addressed Napoleon as she wordlessly left the resetting of the security locks in the capable hands of Ed Lein. "You need to speak with Illya."

Solo nodded.

"Sweeting, these early morning conferences are becoming too much of a habit with you," she chastised him without real censure. She was well aware he would not have made an appearance on her doorstep at 5:30 a.m. if the matter was not important.

"I'm sorry, Trice," Napoleon apologized sincerely, "but I knew he'd be awake and about his normal schedule, so…"

"Understood, Napoleon," interrupted Trice with a quick bob of her head. "No need to act so naughty-little-boy contrite. You know where to find him."

Solo nodded once more.

"Come along, Ed," Trice caught Napoleon's bodyguard firmly by the arm. "We'll have some coffee in the kitchen while the two ultra-secretive chiefly types have their deep discussion in the den."

And with that she propelled Ed Lein toward the kitchen of the brownstone while Napoleon ventured off thankfully alone toward Illya's study.

In the current pre-dawn, the room was dark except for the flickering glow from the flames of the fire roaring in the hearth and the reflected gleam of the solar terrace lights leaking in through the partially ajar patio doors at the back of the study. Illya, dressed in a heavy black sweat suit but incongruously sporting bare feet despite the winter chill, stood on a padded mat out on the veranda running through a series of easy T'ai Chi Chih stretches. His back was to the main of the den, so he didn't see Napoleon enter the premises. His concentration centered on his own practiced movements, neither did he aurally register the sound of his friend's entry. Solo, therefore, sat down in one of the leather armchairs, deciding to wait to speak until Illya had concluded his morning exercise routine.

Watching Illya alternately curl and extend his limbs in numerous positions, Napoleon marveled at his friend's level of pure physical focus. These days Solo's own exercise regimen, though performed with dutiful regularity, consisted of having machines provide the main impetus for working his muscles. Machines on which to run, from which to push, through which to pull. His mind was constantly in overdrive; thus he never found the mental distance necessary to repeatedly execute the minutely prescribed motions of disciplines requiring the attentive synergy of both body and psyche.

At the end of his exercise session, Illya drew several deep cleansing breaths and then turned to re-enter the indoor warmth of his study. He paused in the process of pulling the French doors more fully open as he saw his friend seated within the room.

"What are you doing sitting here in the dark, Napoleon?" Illya questioned as he resumed his action and fully entered his private haven.

"Waiting for you to hear my confession," offered Napoleon with a lopsided grin, a grin faintly traced with apprehension.

"I am not a priest," Illya bluntly reminded the other man as he turned his back on him momentarily so to shut the terrace doors and seal out the cold.

"No," agreed his partner, "but you are my friend, my closest friend."

The Russian revolved his body back toward the American, studying him closely. In the dim glow of the firelight, he observed that his friend was still dressed in the tuxedo from the night before. So obviously and quite uncharacteristically Solo had not bothered to stop by his penthouse to change either before or after his early morning conference call at HQ. The subject of that conference call was unknown to Kuryakin, but he had a suspicion it had more than a little to do with whatever U.N.C.L.E. secrets Thrush's very meticulous record-keepers seemingly knew that he did not. Secrets he was sure related directly to his friend.

So Illya didn't respond to Napoleon's remark with a customary witty taunt. He realized this wasn't any kind of game of one-upmanship. One look into his partner's eyes, dark and entirely without their usual lively sparkle at this moment, told him that. No levity, no mischief, no scheming, no manipulation, no personal magnetism: nothing but sincerity taken to the umpteenth degree. The unvarnished anxiety in his friend's hazel-brown eyes almost floored him.

"I want to talk about a certain…"

Napoleon paused, but whether because he was unsure about how to continue or uncomfortable with doing so, Illya found he uncharacteristically couldn't guess.

"A certain gap in my part of our conjoined past," Napoleon ventured forward after almost a full minute of silence, "a certain fifteen years."

Illya forced his gaze to remain level and unwavering. He wanted to look away, but he wouldn't. Though his eyes burned from his refusal to so much as blink, he nonetheless maintained that ultra-steady stare into the eyes of Napoleon.

"You have never wanted to talk about that before," Illya pointed out simply.

Napoleon let out a very small and much strangled laugh.

"And if you only knew how much I really don't want to talk about it now," he assured the other man. "But I don't believe I have the option of keeping silent any longer."

"Go on," prompted Illya, purposely leaving out of his voice as much as he could manage of his underlying trepidation regarding this strange confrontation.

"I'd feel a little less like I was submitting to an interrogation session if you would sit," Napoleon attempted to lighten the tension with a taste of their usual banter. But it was offered with yet another of those lopsided and very apprehensive grins, a fact that did little to put Illya at ease.

Nonetheless, in the chair adjacent to that of the American and very near the warming fire, the Russian willingly sat, for he feared his knees might betray him.

Pointedly gazing into the red-gold flames of the fire rather than into the ice-blue eyes of his friend, Napoleon began.

"I'm not sure if you knew that there were… potentially adverse strings attached to Waverly's setup of U.N.C.L.E. as an independent agency."

"I did not actually know," Illya informed him, "but I did always suspect."

"Espionage networks based in countries that gave U.N.C.L.E. support and jurisdiction were permitted to occasionally borrow agents from the Command," Napoleon expounded. "It seldom happened because… Well, Alexander Waverly was a political force with which to be reckoned."

Illya permitted himself a small smile.

"Now that I did actually know," he pronounced definitively.

Solo flashed him the smallest of smiles in return, before his countenance regained that curiously unsure expression Illya was not at all accustomed to seeing on the face of his friend. Illya found it was an expression he didn't much like seeing.

"However even Mr. Waverly's clout had its limits," Napoleon plunged into the heart of the matter. "Late in 1968 – with Thrush gasping for breath as it dove into an ocean of hiding, leaving U.N.C.L.E. momentarily at least without any full-time threat to counter – those limits were tested and uh… stretched. The result was me being 'lent' to the CIA for a long-term covert operation."

He paused briefly and took one noticeable deep breath.

"I was particularly pinned for the assignment by my own government because I was so successfully partnered with a Soviet at U.N.C.L.E. that my national loyalty was being called into question," Napoleon disclosed in one determinedly quick-spoken statement, as if he wanted to get this truth out in a rush so to cause Illya as little discomfort as possible with his revelation.

Illya involuntarily straightened his back. It had never occurred to him that his past partner had at the time of their partnership gone through any of the troubles he himself had with regard to the patriotic expectations of his native government. Kuryakin had always imagined their partnership to be unproblematic for Solo from that perspective at least.

"I must assume Mr. Waverly was furious," Illya woodenly remarked, stubbornly set on not showing an off-putting reaction to this eye-opening disclosure. "After all, he had taken such pains to arrange our pairing particularly to demonstrate that U.N.C.L.E. thrived on principles free from the interference of national jingoism."

Solo shook his head more in thought than in contradiction.

"Oh I have no doubt it irked his nobler sensibilities," Napoleon conceded, "but the Old Man was pragmatic as always. I, on the other hand,was indeed furious.

"However, I wasn't given much of a choice," he revealed in a tight voice, his gaze lost in the flickering of the flames in the hearth and his mind lost in the memories he had for years purposely pushed to the very back corners of his consciousness. "Say yes, complete the CIA assignment, allay whatever reservations regarding patriotism were being raised, and subsequently return to U.N.C.L.E. as a man above suspicion. Or say no, probably be forced by my own government to resign from U.N.C.L.E., and possibly have the CIA on my case for the rest of my life."

Napoleon paused again before finalizing, "So I said yes, and hoped for the best."

"With all your usual misplaced optimism," commented Illya with all his usual matter-of-factness.

"Yes, I have always had that to fall back on," Napoleon granted with just a slight touch of humor.

Then Solo's tone regained its deadly serious quality as he continued.

"I was… I am a loyal American, Illya. I don't bleed red, white and blue, but…"

"I never thought any less of you than that, Napoleon," interjected Illya incisively, "and I never thought any less of you for that either."

Solo smiled a little bitterly now. "That might change."

Kuryakin shook his head certainly. "It won't," he pledged the other man in absolute terms.

Solo let out the merest hint of a sigh, though whether in relief or doubt, Illya could not be sure.

"Building a successful computer company was part of my cover," Napoleon continued. "In point of fact I never had much in the way of either verbal or vis-à-vis communication with any government representative. Everything – orders, inquiries, results – was received and sent through coded messages via the inner workings of the computers of my company. And the thrust of the operation wasn't…"

"Let me guess," Illya interrupted brusquely. "It didn't have anything to do with keeping Thrush permanently at bay, nor with keeping neutrally secure the somewhat fragile stability of the then-current world order."

Solo pursed his lips as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"No, It didn't," he made a clean breast of furtive past realities. "I was operating against the Soviet Union, Illya. I was part of the Cold War, an integral part if not exactly an eager part."

Illya kept his peace and just let his friend finish this confession he felt it so necessary to make in a political environment that had changed substantially from the period of time at issue.

"I won't go into details," Napoleon was glad to omit the more sordid particulars from his tale. "Much of what I did is still government classified and probably always will be. Information obtained, information passed: all done through the bios of my company's computers. Everything running like clockwork: mechanical, empty, impersonal. Yet I understood the human results of what I did. Hell, I understood only too well. And, though some of it was surely necessary during that era, much of it was purely part and parcel of the prevailing atmosphere of borderline paranoia."

Solo swallowed reflexively and Illya, still retaining his own peace, watched his friend's Adam's apple bob up and down, deliberately focusing on the ordinariness of the physical trait despite the extraordinariness of the current emotional circumstances.

"I wasn't permitted any physical or verbal contact with U.N.C.L.E.," Napoleon made known the awkward position in which he had been placed by his own government all those years ago. "It was deemed too risky. I received a coded letter from Mr. Waverly generally once every other week, though sometimes more frequently than that. The CIA permitted that limited contact, undoubtedly as a buoy to my misplaced optimism, as you put it, that I would soon enough be returning to U.N.C.L.E."

Solo leaned forward a bit now.

"What they didn't know, what they never figured out, was that my communications with Waverly were much more than that," Napoleon launched into the portion of this story that most concerned them now, the part that related to what U.N.C.L.E. itself considered highly classified information regarding this past situation. "We had arranged between us, the Old Man and I, a personal code that allowed us to bounce back-and-forth ideas on ways to make my various missions more compatible with U.N.C.L.E.'s own directives. Nothing that could be pinpointed; nothing that jeopardized U.S. interests; nothing that could be used as fodder for any kind of trumped-up treason charge. Just small things that moved outside of the realm of Cold War politics and that, I will grant, salved my own conscience a great deal."

"And this is what U.N.C.L.E. has kept under wraps all these years," Illya stated the facts succinctly. "And this is what those meticulous record-keepers at Thrush must have found out at the time, and thus why abandoning their little project started on you during the Specimen Pool Affair was never a consideration."

Solo nodded slowly.

"I wanted to contact you, Illya, back when it was all going down," Napoleon said without fuss as he at last turned to face his friend. "To let you in on the game. Hell, just to talk to you and hope you'd understand. But Waverly was insistent that would jeopardize everything he wanted for U.N.C.L.E. as well as everything he wanted from me."

"And so he ordered you in no uncertain terms to keep clear of communicating with me in any way," Illya summarized without malice.

"You know I was never one to worry about disobeying orders I didn't account as essential to the success of a mission, Illya," Napoleon noted with a little smirk. The smirk faded however as he revealed, "But this time the Old Man was so…"

Solo shrugged diffidently.

"Even though I desperately wanted to disobey him in this, I found I just couldn't. And it wasn't to protect myself so much as to protect his dream, for U.N.C.L.E., which somewhere along the way became my dream as well. I just couldn't put my personal desires above that dream.

"Yet I won't deny how difficult it was, or how aggravating," Napoleon candidly admitted. "Especially as what originally was thought by both myself and Waverly to be maybe a two or three year 'loan' turned into five or six, and then into ten, and then into a dozen…"

Napoleon leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes wearily.

"I know the Old Man constantly intervened right to the President himself in my behalf," he lay bare the reality of Waverly's unrelenting tenacity, "aiming to get me back to U.N.C.L.E. where I wanted most to be. Nixon told him that America would keep its best to itself. Ford told him I was doing such valuable work, there would have to be a wait yet. Carter said he'd consider it and then promptly forgot about it. And Reagan finally told him yes, but it had to be done with finesse, thus requiring some time to deftly coordinate. Then Waverly died and…"

Solo offered only a tight shrug as he found his gaze returning to the neutrality of the fire.

"I assumed it was all over and done with and I would never be allowed to return to U.N.C.L.E.," Napoleon pronounced with heartrending wretchedness. For him, even the mere memory of this possibility hurt beyond measure.

Illya placed a reassuring hand on the arm of his friend.

"I have to tell you, Illya," Napoleon made very soft and very sad mention as he focused his eyes back on the countenance of the other man, "that Mr. Waverly never revealed in any of his missives to me during all those years that you had left U.N.C.L.E. and the why of that. If he had, I would have arranged to see you, talk with you. Managed it somehow and everything else be damned."

Illya smiled one of his patented half-smiles.

"That is exactly why Mr. Waverly never advised you of my resignation. That wily old fox knew it would present double the risk."

Solo gazed questioningly at Illya, confusion showing in the depths of his hazel-brown eyes.

Illya released one great sigh. He had his own confession to make. And though it involved none of U.N.C.L.E.'s own internal politics as did that of Napoleon, it was nonetheless one he knew it was time, past time, to make to his friend.

"Napoleon, you know the reason I initially resigned from U.N.C.L.E…"

"Yes, that girl who was killed during your first encounter with Janus," quickly interposed Napoleon in an effort to spare his friend having to put into words his own unpleasant memories. "He was U.N.C.L.E., and he betrayed you, and an innocent died as a result. A perfectly understandable reason to feel U.N.C.L.E. was no longer where you wanted to be."

Illya took a deep breath and dove headlong into his own declaration of private guilt.

"Napoleon, do you really think my resignation from U.N.C.L.E. cancelled any debts I owed elsewhere? And does your Western arrogance somehow suppose yourself more a patriot of your country than I of mine?"

Solo stared a bit dumbfounded as realization hit him.

"GRU?" Napoleon inquired in an uneven voice.

Illya nodded slightly.

"Many a covert operation cloaked itself amidst the designer fashions of Vanya's," he enunciated with self-accusatory sarcasm.

Solo bit his lower lip lightly.

"I truly did want out of the spy game after what happened with Janus in Yugoslavia," Illya explained, "but that game held me fast. You see, I wanted to stay in this country, yet at the same time I did not want to lose my homeland. I guess I had become enamored of the American idea of having it all," he furthered a bit ruefully.

"That bait was constantly dangled under my nose," Illya furthered, seemingly embarrassed by what he privately deemed his own past self-indulgence. "However to so 'have it all', to stay in the U.S. yet remain a welcome citizen of the U.S.S.R., it was made more than clear to me I had to keep firm roots in the GRU.

"Vanya's was their brainchild and I was its front," the Russian chastised himself in a very self-deprecating manner. "I think it amused the powers-that-were in my country to put a trained assassin and martial arts expert in the guise of a dress designer catering to the pampered upper class of a capitalistic society. Subtle mental punishment for what they labeled my surrender to the emotional decadence of the West.

"It was more than a half-dozen years," he continued, bitterness plainly evident in his voice, "before I was finally permitted to sever all the remaining tendrils without incurring the status of a traitor. Afterwards I kept Vanya's as a reminder never again to put myself in such a situation.

"I believe to this day," Illya concluded musingly, "that Mr. Waverly too had a hand in my release from over-encroaching national demands."

Solo smiled slowly.

"I wouldn't doubt it," he assured his friend. "He was indeed a wily old fox. Every slight change I made to one of my CIA missions, those changes that aided U.N.C.L.E.'s more multinational initiatives, the Old Man recorded in precise detail. Later he used those records as substantiation to the other four Continental Chiefs as to why I should definitely still be considered as his successor. Sir John knew he was only an acting chief right from the get-go, just till I could be eased back into the internal workings of the organization. But I didn't know any of that, not until my first Summit Five as head of the North American division when I was regaled with tales of how Mr. Waverly had fought tooth-and-nail to insure I would eventually sit in his chair."

"And of that I have no doubt," responded Illya in kind. "Mr. Waverly always saw something in you, Napoleon, something that made him realize he could leave his great venture safely in your hands."

Napoleon flushed with very honest embarrassment. Illya couldn't help but grin at that. It was a rare feat to cause such a reaction in unflappable Napoleon Solo.

"But it does seem, my friend," Napoleon noted as the flaming of his cheeks subsided, "we were for so many needless years set at cross-purposes."

"Unhappily so," agreed Illya. "You know the old saying: 'Politics makes strange bedfellows'?" he queried of his friend.

"Of course," acknowledged Napoleon with all the accustomed rapport that was second nature between them.

"Well, I think it more accurate to say, in this case anyway," proposed Illya, "that politics made strangers of friends."

Solo nodded slowly. Then he brightened as he teased, "That is at least until a nationally non-partisan entity called Thrush re-emerged on the world scene in the person of a megalomaniacal operative desperate to pursue an old vendetta by insisting U.N.C.L.E. tag me as the carrier of a ransom drop. I hate to reference a Thrush revival as a bit of 'bon chance', but under the circumstances…"

Illya shook his head, a wayward smile pulling at his lips in innate response to his friend's characteristic mischievous wit.

"Not a bit of 'bon chance'," Illya fell naturally into the push-pull of the repartee, "rather a bit of Solo luck."

Napoleon laughed, relief evident in every line of his body. The secrets between them were done and all was once more as it should be.

"Now I understand why you were so adamant about changing the Command's charter once you became the foremost hemispheric chief in the organization," Illya once more interjected a more serious and pertinent point into their conversation. "No more favors for rights. Instead an outright connection to the United Nations that precludes the type of strings Mr. Waverly had to concede as an independent in need of any particular nation's specified cooperation to act."

Napoleon smiled brilliantly, his most charming smile.

"Somehow it seemed an important distinction," he determined honestly.

"Ever the idealist," Illya readily indicted his friend's persistently buoyant and eternally optimistic personality.

Yet there was no acerbic censure in Illya's comment, no nuance of pragmatic disdain. Rather that comment veiled quiet admiration, and Napoleon felt that subtle difference directly in his heart and right through to his soul.

"Mr. Waverly would be extremely proud of the man he handpicked as his successor all those years ago," Illya made known his own judgment on the issue.

Napoleon unconsciously preened under the other man's forthright praise. That praise, coming as it did from Illya, meant the world to him. More than the world. He had made his confession and Illya had also made his, and none of it mattered at all. He and this man, who each had so long ago become an integral facet of the other's soul, were still friends, still as close as ever they had been, still partners. Solo luck indeed.

* * *

As she ejected the remaining unfired cartridge from the chamber of the firearm on which she had just completed her testing as Nikolaevna Anuchin, Natasha Kuryakin clandestinely set the micro-tracker onto the charging handle of the high-powered rifle. For six days she had been examining and evaluating weapons for Thrush. Whenever Kyle or Alfred, in their mob muscle personas, stood watch on the firing range – and only then – she planted the micro-trackers on those weapons in what she, with her expertise in armament design, considered the most inconspicuous locations. It was a tedious process, but one which would guarantee U.N.C.L.E. tracing of the various Thrush satrapies and arms stash facilities where the artillery was being shipped. When this phase of the mission was complete, U.N.C.L.E. would employ strike teams to take out all of the traced locations in one fell swoop. It was an ambitious plan, one fraught with risk. Yet so far everything was proceeding with clockwork precision.

However, the notable lack of Thrush intervention was starting to spook Natasha. She was all but positive Thrush, in the person of David Islenleque, was aware Ceallach MacGonigle was in reality an U.N.C.L.E. agent named Jacques Valdar. Yet nothing had yet been done to expose, incapacitate or otherwise eliminate Jack as a threat. And that made Natasha very nervous. Jack, who currently leaned against a side barrier what most would consider too near the actual targets to insure continued good health, appeared as composed as a man reclining in an easy chair before a homey fire. If nothing else, his casual stance demonstrated to his partner he trusted in the pinpoint accuracy of her marksmanship at the very least.

"Pora sdyelat' pausu," Kyle, in his Russian guise, made small talk as a warning to Natasha that someone not one of their own was coming into the range enclosure.  
{Translation: About time for a break.}

"Pozvol'te mne proverit' eto posledneye," Nikolaevna responded, even as Natasha desisted from placing any more micro-trackers for the moment.  
{Translation: Let me check this last one.}

Gena Yunusov strolled into the enclosure, making a beeline toward Jack.

"We will share some lunch, eh, Ceallach?" the Russian invited the Irishman as he placed a very familiar hand on Ceallach's left forearm.

Had Jack stiffened slightly at Yunusov's assertive touch? Or had Natasha only imagined that reaction? Certainly Yunusov himself, judging by the salaciously self-satisfied smirk on his face, had noticed no such negative physical response from Ceallach.

Lifting the next rifle lined up on the table near her and loading the weapon with a full clip, Nikolaevna fired in rapid and unhesitant succession toward the target wall. The barrage of bullets passed unconscionably close to Ceallach's body.

"This one pulls to the right," she stated nonchalantly as Gena glowered at her.

Nikolaevna extended the rifle, butt first, toward Ceallach.

Both U.N.C.L.E. agents knew the drill. Every weapon, from the various stashes that Natasha as Nikolaevna tested or analyzed, Jack as Ceallach was to handle after her. In such manner, if any of the micro-trackers were detected, Ceallach could be blamed for their planting. This had always been the plan, but it had become even more essential with the likelihood of Jack's cover being already blown. It was, however, not a drill Natasha liked performing. It made her feel as if she was deliberately abandoning her partner to the enemy. Nevertheless she professionally obeyed her orders.

Ceallach walked closer to Nikolaevna in order to accept the weapon from her hand. Then he hefted and manipulated it deftly, appropriately marked it with a piece of chalk he took from his pocket, and finally placed it in a nearby crate housing other weapons with minor defects in need of adjustment.

"You do play with fire, Nalya," cautioned Yunusov ominously.

Nikolaevna shrugged.

"What can I say? Like you, Gena, I am of Russian blood," she reminded the man, "and we are indeed a passionate people."

"I can vouch for that," suggestively declared Ceallach with a particularly wicked twinkle in his emerald green eyes.

Though she still couldn't be certain of her own accuracy in gauging Jack's exact frame of mind, Natasha was more than reasonably sure she detected a decidedly dangerous gleam within the hard glitter of that wicked twinkle.

Gena seemingly didn't detect that danger, as the Irishman's evocative avowal only garnered from the Russian mob boss an appreciative leer.

"I'm going to nap for a bit," decided Nikolaevna in a veritable huff. "Wake me when you are all finished stuffing yourselves," she further ventured, "in whatever manner you find the most gratifying."

Ceallach snorted in amusement at her pointed remark as she indignantly stormed off toward the watchman's living quarters.

* * *

Laura Beckstein, in the guise of Eloise Drexler, made the rounds of the sensor-equipped conveyors that were currently being used to load crates onto various trucks. Of course the fussy yet naive Eloise still had no notion what was in those crates, though Laura was herself far less unenlightened. However, the sensor array was supposed to insure the owners of the warehouse that whatever was being routed out from their property was "safe". Yunusov and company had secretly rigged the sensors so they failed to pick up on any of the more questionable contents of the crates, and Laura had herself re-rigged those same sensors so that they also failed to pick up on the U.N.C.L.E. technology micro-transmitters she knew were hidden in much of those contents.

The operation was running smoothly. Another day or two, and all the artillery – trackers installed on a goodly percentage of the consignment – would be moving toward final destinations in Thrush satrapies and armories. After that, the ultimate success or failure of the Russian Arms Affair would rest in the ready hands of mobilized U.N.C.L.E. strike teams.

"A match you have maybe, señora?" asked Pedro Arquas as he, in his own guise of manual day laborer, sidled up to his partner with an unlit cigarillo dangling from his lips.

"I'm afraid not," Eloise replied, as Laura patiently waited for whatever information Pedro obviously needed to pass along to her. "I don't smoke and you shouldn't either. It's bad for the lungs," she admonished in perfect pedantic character.

Pedro shrugged as he pulled the cigarillo from his mouth.

"And the yelling of the foreman, that is not so good for the nerves," he responded also in faultless masquerade. "So I need a smoke to calm them again, you understand? You tell me, señora," the ersatz warehouseman made apparently casual small talk, "how was I to know the box behind the rolling wall was not to be loaded with the others, heh? The foreman only say load all the boxes in this dock area onto the belts. And that wall is part of this dock, wouldn't you agree, señora?"

Laura received Pedro's message loud and clear.

"Perhaps the contents are fragile and he thought you too much of an oaf to load it without incurring breakage," she kept up her persnickety characterization just as David Islenleque entered the open dock with another man close on his heels.

"Is the oaf bothering you, Mlle. Drexler?" David queried with typical polished charm.

"I can hold my own against the petty annoyance of rough itinerant workers, Mr. Islenleque," Eloise assured her supposed white knight, though she nevertheless offered him the timid ghost of an appreciative smile. "I have been doing so for years."

Keenly aware of the numerous martial art talents of his slight and deceptively fragile-looking female partner, Pedro had to suppress a snort.

"_She can hold her own against the smug self-assurance of Thrush smooth operators too," he thought with a little mental smirk._

"I not bother the lady!" Pedro swiftly thrust himself into the indignation of his borrowed persona. "I just ask for a light! I ask very polite!"

"Politeness is always to be commended," David retorted coolly. "I would more commend you at this moment, however, for returning to your job. Comprenez-vous?"

Cursing under his breath in Spanish, Pedro threw his still unlit cigarillo to the ground and sauntered back toward the boxes yet in need of loading onto the conveyor.

"Thank you for your concern, Mr. Islenleque," Eloise spoke again with just the smallest hint of a shy smile. "This another of your associates?" she inquired easily with regard to the silent man beside David.

"Oui," David seemed suddenly to recall that he had the other man in tow. "Mlle. Drexler, this is Monsieur Harath. He is here to check on the condition of some of our merchandise. Monsieur Harath, may I introduce Mlle. Drexler, the exceedingly lovely and equally efficient security administrator for the company who is renting us this fine warehouse," flattered David in his best continental manner, receiving in return for his pretty compliment a self-conscious blush from Eloise.

Harath, a thin and somewhat disheveled man who looked to Laura definitely coldblooded enough to successfully handle a gun yet in no physical condition to much handle himself in any other way during a fight, nodded shortly.

"_Not an in-the-trenches operative," Laura mentally concluded regarding the newcomer, as her brain ran through all the various permutations of what might be Harath's position within Thrush._

"Monsieur Harath will be remaining on the grounds for a few days. I'm going to show him to the watchman's quarters," continued David. "Since there is a third bedroom there, Mlle. Anuchin and her bodyguard should not be too much put-out by his presence."

"You know your own people best, Mr. Islenleque," Eloise seemingly dismissed the matter as none of her concern as she returned to diligently surveying the sensor array.

* * *

Natasha tried to rest, but her mind was churning. Everything with regard to the mission was going well… too well.

Laura had managed to smuggle in the micro-trackers without a hitch. She had then been able to pass them to Natasha herself without causing any seeming speculation at all, and Natasha was planting those tiny gems of technology also without causing any speculation thus far. Kyle and Alfred were blending in with the Russian Mafia henchmen without any questions being raised about exactly who they were. Pedro was keeping an eye on the docks, noting which trucks were loaded with what type of weaponry from discrete coding Jack placed on the various crates. The coded markings were made with a light absorbing form of chalk detectable by Pedro via a specially-purposed sensor in a contact lens that he wore. Without that aid, the chalked symbols remained invisible to the naked eye.

And Jack? Jack was involved in seemingly every facet of the undercover mission: Handling the weapons after Natasha to shift any possible Thrush misgivings away from her, marking the crates themselves, making what passed for casual conversation with Laura in her Eloise disguise to ascertain the loading and transport schedules of the trucks, trysting with Yunusov in an attempt to gain further information on the Russian mob's dealings with the ultra-secret supra-nation. Natasha had to admit she admired her partner's efficient style and his non-self-trumpeting bravura, for there was no doubt Jack was setting it all up so he would take the brunt of any Thrush suspicions and subsequent retaliation solely upon his own head.

It was this last particular that made Natasha the most uneasy. She and Jack were partners. She should be shouldering her share of the possibility of those suspicions and any subsequent retaliation. She shouldn't, as the old saying went, be hanging Jack out to dry. But it was apparent U.N.C.L.E. was prepared to risk and possibly sacrifice Jack for the ultimate success of this mission, and that Jack himself was aware of this reality and was in agreement with the organization's decision on this score.

That thought brought Natasha around to the puzzle of David Islenleque and why he had not as of yet made any attempt to stop Jack in his tracks. Truth be told, she found Islenleque unnerving. He was slick, polished, and dangerous as a shark in a swimming pool. His easy continental manner chilled her to her bones since his ruthlessness so shined right through it, like sunlight through silk. She had an inkling that Islenleque had not yet related to his boss Ospreye anything about Jack, that the underling intended to personally spring some trap, and then and only then tell Ospreye of the threat from U.N.C.L.E. during this particular enterprise. Of course he would grant himself in the process self-praising notice on how he had thwarted that threat without muss or fuss… and without higher-up intervention. In truth Natasha had a more than sneaking suspicion that privately Islenleque conceived of any such intervention as interference. Ambition, after all, leaked out of the man's every pore.

"_That could well prove your undoing, my over-preening Gallic Thrushbird," Natasha mentally surmised. "Wait too long to make the killing dive on your prey, and Jack will have outmaneuvered you and got himself fully out of range of your greedy talons."_

While inwardly Natasha hoped and prayed this would be the turn events took, she yet fretted and feared that all was currently too neat.

An unexpected noise caused her to rise from her bed, where rest refused to find her anyway. She made her way into the main room of the watchman's quarters. There she came upon David Islenleque and another man she had not seen before this moment.

"David," she began, studiously attempting to keep the nervousness from her voice, "you have a reason for entering here without as much as the courtesy of a knock?"

"Ah, Nalya," the Frenchman greeted her with one of those charming smiles of his, "I hadn't realized you would be here at this hour."

"I have a headache," Nikolaevna stated simply. "I thought perhaps a nap might relieve me of it."

"No doubt your headache has much to do with the chosen private activities of your bodyguard," David guessed with what Natasha could only classify as an unpleasantly gloating smirk.

"Be that as it may," Nikolaevna sidestepped David's psychological jab, "you still have not explained why you are entering my quarters like a thief. Unless perhaps you are acting as a thief in truth, David," she could not resist baiting the smug Thrushie.

"Rien de si grossier," David, with a distressed expression, made apparently sincere guarantee. "Since a need has arisen for Monsieur Harath," he indicated the man beside him, "to share these quarters for a day or two, I was merely conducting him to the premises so he can settle in."  
{Translation: Nothing so crude!}

Mental alarm bells were going off in Natasha's head.

"I have an aversion to sharing accommodations with strangers," Nikolaevna pronounced in her haughtiest temperamental manner.

"Mes excuses," David made a strictly formulaic effort at appeasing her, for they both knew she really had no choice in the matter. "Yet there is an unused bedroom and, as I already noted, a need has arisen for Monsieur Harath to remain here in the compound."

Islenleque himself had not been staying at the warehouse complex, rather coming and going back-and-forth as he deemed key. The muscle guarding the operation was all under the governing hand of the Russian Mafia, and thus there had been no full-time Thrush presence during this affair. Now apparently, very near to the end of it all, there would be. Though Natasha had no clue as to who exactly this other man was within the structure of Thrush, that he absolutely was Thrush and would be housed here in close proximity to not only herself but to Jack was cause enough for disquiet.

"Will you introduce me to my enforced roommate?" Nikolaevna imperiously requested of the Frenchman.

David smirked once more.

"Mais bien sûr," acknowledged David. "Please forgive my bad manners. Nalya, this is Monsieur Harath, a member of my organization who will be insuring the condition of certain of our consignment. Monsieur, this is Mlle. Anuchin, our contracted arms assessor."

Nikolaevna raised an eyebrow toward David.

"My work is deemed unsatisfactory?" she questioned him with a definite iciness in her tone.

"Très certainement non!" David hastened to reassure her.  
{Translation: Most definitely not!}

"Then why bring in another to insure the condition of any of the consignment?" Nikolaevna demanded, not in the least soothed by the Frenchman's reassurance. "Isn't that what I am here to do for your organization?"

"My expertise is not in arms, madam," Harath interjected amusedly.

David passed him a displeased sidelong look, but Harath appeared largely unfazed by the other man's disapproval.

"Then in what?" inquired Nikolaevna as her eyes narrowed, looking for all the world as if she did not believe him.

"That is none of your concern, Nalya," David ended any further push for information in this vein. "Your job is to assess the weaponry, and you are doing that quite admirably. I am most pleased with your labors on that score. Whatever other expertise my organization requires for inspection of the stores in this warehouse has nothing to do with your contract."

Nikolaevna continued to stare a bit belligerently at Islenleque for another few moments; then she simply shrugged.

"As you say, it is none of my concern," she agreed. "I prefer in all honesty to know nothing I do not need to know to complete my contract. I always find it is better all around to actually be ignorant of details where any such knowledge could result in unpleasant consequences."

"C'est la sagesse en effet," praised David with his most winning smile. "For one so young, you have grasped much of the intricacies of living, Nalya."  
{Translation: This is wisdom indeed.}

Nikolaevna shrugged once more.

"My stock-in-trade makes curiosity a liability," she admitted, "and I try to limit my liabilities however I can."

* * *

Niles Ospreye made a concentrated effort to suppress his feelings of uncertainty and discomfort. His mistress had been in the hands of U.N.C.L.E. for fifteen days. Fifteen days without contact between them. Fifteen days of wondering if she could accomplish what she had been sent into the enemy's headquarters to do. Fifteen days of worrying over what she might be experiencing there in those headquarters finally close to the man with whose sensory synapses hers had been heightened to connect. Fifteen days of secret anxiety.

There had never been a concrete plan. Instead there had been a scant outline of possibility, a thin thread of opportunity...

"_He was wearing one of the light manipulation suits when a small chemical explosion triggered a fire in the lab. Je suppose qu'il voulait to remove the hood to insure he had clear vision for making his way out. In any case, dans sa hâte in unzipping and pushing back that portion of the suit, he spun his body off-balance and fell, whacking his head against the edge of one of the tables and knocking over a small vial of a lucisorqe-infused compound. The liquid splashed over his exposed face. Apparently the blow to the head left him disoriented for a time and he didn't make it to the door before the emergency systems began slowly removing the oxygen from the lab to contain the fire," David Islenleque gave the account of the incident to the member of the Thrush Supreme Council who was his immediate supervisor._

"_Others went in and, heureusement, managed to haul him out, since his head being visible made it possible to ascertain where he was lying on the floor. He had only been in the lab une minute ou deux during the oxygen depletion cycle: long enough to make breathing difficult and result in wooziness, but not to do permanent damage of any kind to his brain. Yet when he was brought out, he was complètement hystérique._

"_His sensory impulses seemed perturbés," David continued. "He yelled about not seeing anything but hearing 'pulses' coming from people around him. Touching anything resulted in various scents emanating from whatever he touched, mais pas de sensations tactiles. His taste buds were being activated by sound from what the doctors could determine. At that point he went into severe convulsions, but medical personnel finally got him stabilized. The lucisorqe in the fluid compound had leached into his bloodstream in the lessened oxygen conditions of the lab. The doctors believe it was the mineral that, within the somewhat oxygen deprived state of his body, triggered the désordre fonctionnel of his sensory reactions."_

_Niles Ospreye nodded shortly. "How is the man now?"_

"_Providing him pure oxygen stabilized his condition," stated David. "Yet the doctors have confirmed his nervous system has somehow rerouted the synaptic path of sensory impulses within his brain. So, malheureusement, hope is slight that his senses will return entièrement fonctionnels even once the lucisorqe has completely dissipated from his bloodstream."_

"_All from limited contact with his skin?" questioned Delphina Reikedahl in a dubious voice. "I know others have occasionally gotten lucisorqe on their hands or fingers, yet I have never heard of such a reaction to the mineral before."_

_Islenleque eyed the woman stonily. Ospreye knew the other man deeply disliked her, judged her a travesty against nature. But of course David was much too politically astute to ever say that aloud, and definitely not with Niles himself in range of hearing. Though he kept his mistress a close secret that did not travel beyond the boundaries of Thrush, the Supreme Councilman's deep and abiding obsession with the "transformed" albino was nevertheless no secret amongst those in the know within the organization itself._

"_As I've already noted, the doctors believe the oxygen deprived state of his blood was the catalyst," came Islenleque's cold retort. "You understand about a catalyst being necessary to create certain physical reactions, sûrement."_

_Delphina's own eyes caught and held those of Islenleque. There was no mistaking his meaning. Catalysts, in the form of chemical, bioelectric and bio-magnetic input garnered from the body of another human being, had been necessary to physically recreate her. She was as aware as Niles was himself of exactly what the Frenchman accounted her: a freak, a scientifically twisted atrocity. And one as well totally worthless to Thrush after the organization had poured millions of dollars into her father's research to restructure her as she was now._

"_Which possibility will have to be further investigated," concluded Ospreye. "For the moment, however, the salient point is that the suit itself was not damaged, since we have so few working models as of yet._

"_These light manipulation suits are truly a wonder, Delphina," Niles then enthused to his mistress in a somewhat less than smooth effort to change the subject. "They are what I wanted to show you here today. Wearing one of these suits is a unique experience in which I have myself indulged. Come, try one on for yourself and see."_

_Ospreye took her gently by the arm and moved Delphina toward another of the underground labs in his business complex, pointedly away from David. Niles was no fool. He knew his right-hand man's opinion of his unusual paramour, and thus he kept them clear of each other as much as possible. The only reason they were face-to-face today was that Niles had already been with Delphina in one of the underground labs, and David's report regarding what had happened with the lab tech was deemed too important to wait. Still, Niles had no intention of letting David bait Delphina with his less than subtle hints about what Islenleque himself considered her._

_Once he had her safely away from David's disapproving gaze, Niles opened a lab safe containing the current small store of light manipulation suits. Grabbing the top one, he unfolded it with a flourish and extended it to Delphina with an almost boyish smile. New and unique technology excited him, and he enjoyed with all the gusto of a small child "playing" with any new "toys" the labs made available._

_Delphina smiled in return to him. She knew of his passion and seemed to herself enjoy the wonderfully childlike enthusiasm it engendered in him. At moments like this, he knew he seemed less like a calculating power-monger manipulating events to his advantage within the hierarchy of Thrush and more like a man simply intrigued and curious about the possibilities of new science. Likely much as Delphina remembered her own father, despite how hard around the edges that man's scientific curiosity had itself grown over time._

_Teasing her lover just as playfully with a mischievous striptease, since he had previously informed her the suit must be worn over only naked skin, Delphina finally accepted the suit from his hand and slipped into its lightweight yet strangely confining material. She hadn't yet zipped the hood into position when her expression changed to one of bewilderment._

"_What is it, Delphina?" queried Niles with a furrowing of his brow._

"_Is it usual to..." she grasped for the correct words. "To see things not there when wearing this?"_

"_See things not there?" Niles asked in confusion. He had worn the suit himself and hadn't experienced anything in that vein._

"_Well, not see exactly. Sense is likely more the appropriate term," she tried to explain. "But it is definitely a visual sensation; one you know isn't physically there yet still seems to actually flit before the eye."_

"_What does?" Niles pressed._

"_Images of a fire are what I am receiving in a kind of visual flashback," Delphina verbally scrabbled to make the phenomenon understood by her lover. Then she staggered and placed an invisible hand to her visible forehead, shielding it from ready view in that process._

"_Delphina, are you all right?" demanded Niles as he unsuccessfully groped for her unseen elbow in an attempt to hold her steady._

"_Just sort of dizzy," she told him. "Lightheaded from the images flashing through my brain. It's... disorienting."_

_Not in the least understanding what was happening, Niles reached over to her mostly invisible form and fumbled for the zipper closing the main of the suit._

"_Let's get you out of this," he suggested with concern._

_Delphina nodded and herself located the zipper and pulled it open, shrugging her arms and shoulders from the released material and letting the suit drop the remainder of the way to her feet. Then she stepped out of it and kicked the garment pointedly aside._

_Niles enfolded her in his arms, holding her body calmingly against his as her accelerated breathing slowed._

"_That's never happened to anyone who has ever worn one of these. I wouldn't have let you try it on if I suspected you would have such a negative reaction."_

_Delphina's mouth against his shoulder seemed to shape into a wry half-smile._

"_The price of being sensorially different than the majority, I suspect," she acknowledged in a somewhat brittle tone._

_Niles hugged her closer. He never purposely attempted to analyze his own obsession with her, yet in the subconscious depths of his mind he realized it had more than a bit to do with his passion for and curiosity regarding the new and unique results of science. And he also realized in those same subconscious depths that hazy cause for his regard wreaked havoc with certain portions of Delphina's self-esteem. Yet for whatever reason, she did have his heart and she forever would. And at times like this he always attempted to make that clear to her however he could._

"_Niles," she began after remaining several long silent moments within his embrace, "let me try on another of the suits."_

_Niles pulled back from her so he could study her face._

"_Why?" he wanted to know._

"_Because I'm curious too," she answered with a dazzling smile, a smile that did not quite relieve the strain evident in her features._

"_I'm not sure it's a good idea," Niles hesitated._

"_Just for a minute, Niles," she pleaded gently._

_He stared into her eyes for a moment longer and finally nodded his consent as he released his hold on her._

_This time Delphina reached herself into the still open safe and took another folded suit from the small pile. She slipped it on, zipped it up minus the hood and waited for the same sensation to overcome her. Apparently it didn't._

_She shook her head toward Niles before pulling the hood in place and zipping that into position as well._

"_Nothing emanating from this one. Was the other the one the tech was wearing during the incident in the lab?"_

"_I'm not certain," Niles informed her, "but it seems likely doesn't it? Each has a serial number imprinted in the seam of the hood, so I'll check with David to be sure, but—"_

_Delphina unzipped the hood and pulled it back from her head so that she would no longer be entirely invisible to Niles._

"_I think we both know the answer already," she agreed with the hanging 'but' of his statement. "And I think this new phenomenon will require some additional testing."..._

With typical Thrush efficiency, tested it had been on subjects both willing and unwilling. It was found everything had to coincide precisely for a visual sensory image to be "recorded" by the lucisorqe compound used on the plastic-like material of the suit. First: the suit had to be worn at the time of the recording. Second: the wearer had to have lucisorqe present in the bloodstream. Third: the wearer had to be in at least a somewhat oxygen deprived state. When all three of these prerequisites were met, the lucisorqe in the powder coating of the suit temporarily bonded with that being excreted as liquid in the sweat of the wearer. The ultimate result was a visual sensory image from the wearer being impressed into the more stable powder lucisorqe compound of the suit. This temporary process was found to in no way inhibit the light manipulation properties of the suit's powder compound, nor to damage it for future use. It was also found that only a very few sensorially sensitive individuals could process the impressed image contained in the suit. And of those few only Delphina, with her enhanced sensory synapses, was able to identify that impression as more than an indistinct blur.

This then had provided that scant outline of possibility, that thin thread of opportunity to capture within a light manipulation suit the visual sensory image from the scrolling screen of a core server dump of the bio-drone. How all the necessary steps were to be choreographed, however, had never been fully stage-managed. Still Delphina had been more than willing to proceed into unfriendly territory with no more "weaponry" than the suit itself, a liquid lucisorqe compound mixed into her hair dye, knowledge that U.N.C.L.E. employed an oxygen depletion emergency system in case of fire in all its various computer server centers, and her own unique abilities with regard to assumed sensory connectivity with Napoleon Solo accented by her abundant knowledge of sleight-of-hand and utmost mind concentration.

Now, however, Niles wondered if accepting her voluntary excursion into a presumably adversarial yet potentially seductive environment had been wise. He knew she desperately wanted to prove the validity of her father's theories regarding her sensory connection with Solo. That was more her reason for volunteering for this mission than any desire to gain the programming of the bio-drone for Thrush. The bio-drone wasn't important to her, and truthfully neither were the goals of Thrush itself. But experiencing and possibly recording for posterity what would happen when she was in contact with Solo was. She was still so very much her father's utterly and blindly devoted daughter.

Yet Ospreye couldn't be upset with this reality because he knew he selfishly wanted her to succeed in this mission so that he could openly prove to all the naysayers that she was more than just his personal obsession, that she was a vital instrument of overall value to his organization. Thus he wanted his passion for the science she singularly represented to be validated as well. And he knew he was using Delphina's own wish to bear out her father's research as an opportune excuse to seek his own vindication in the eyes of his Thrush cohorts.

And so Niles Ospreye had foolishly sent Delphina Reikedahl off to U.N.C.L.E., and now he anxiously waited for her return. Anxious because he was honest enough to admit to himself that, if she didn't come back with the desired programming of the bio-drone "in suit" as it were, Thrush would likely no longer tolerate his personal obsession. The Supreme Council as the governing body of the organization would then demand he "terminate" that obsession as a test of loyalty. Thus this time all his prized political power within Thrush would actually be the means of destroying rather than protecting her.

* * *

Jack Valdar looked across the expanse of the bed to the figure of the slight man snoring somewhat loudly on the other side.

"_The things I do for U.N.C.L.E.," he thought self-mockingly even as he resolved to set up a particularly romantic evening with his more-than-friend, the veterinarian Alicia, as soon as this was all done. That is assuming he made it through all this alive._

At least this particular aspect of the mission was now over. For the past week he had been participating in seduction scenes between his undercover persona, Ceallach MacGonigle, and the Bratva gang leader, Gennadiy Yunusov, with Ceallach as the supposed object of the Russian's enticement ploys. Ceallach had been "playing hard to get", dangling a possible interest in his female client – the arrogantly alluring Nikolaevna Anuchin – as bait to keep Yunusov's competitively-edged attention piqued. The strategy had indeed made Gena, in an attempt to showcase to Ceallach how his powerful position in the underworld could provide the Irishman with more than mere sexual indulgence, somewhat less closemouthed with regard to the operation his group was currently in the middle of completing with Thrush. The Russian Mafia boss had supplied the U.N.C.L.E. agent with very useful information: information regarding how the illegal arms were obtained and transported out of Russia and into the United States, information about the scope and setup of the communications network in use between the Russian mob and various elements within Thrush, information about Yunusov having responsibility in this shipment for a special cargo much coveted by Thrush and the Russian not appreciating that responsibility. Jack had gotten the distinct impression something about that particular cargo, whatever it was (and that Gena never did reveal), made the man uneasy. That uneasiness was intriguing. What kind of cargo would prey on the generally impervious nerves of a man like Gennadiy Yunusov?

Ceallach's ultimate capitulation to Gena tonight has been as planned as anything else Jack had done during the whole scenario. With the arrival of Harath earlier in the day, the stage had been set to finalize all aspects of the mission. After lunch Nikolaevna had completed her assessment of all the weaponry, with only the necessity remaining on the morrow for her to make a few notations on those arms found to have minor flaws. Thus her contracted stint for Thrush was nearly at an end. The micro-trackers were all in place; the crates of armaments all loaded onto various trucks for transport; the man who was to take care of that special cargo for Thrush "in the building".

Laura, who had contacted U.N.C.L.E. via communicator regarding Harath as soon as she was off-site of the warehouse complex, had gotten a non-verbal message back to the other members of the mission team with the information provided her by Section IV. Signal vibrations sent via Laura's pen communicator to a transceiver each agent had imbedded under the skin of his/her abdomen had pulsed out simply: Benjamin Harath, Lead Chemist, Thrush Scientific Force NY.

So – with Harath ensconced in the watchman's quarters where both Natasha and Jack were being housed, with Jack aware his cover had been blown days ago through Thrush had not openly confronted him, with there being particular details of this mission Jack had yet to finish and which details he had to complete entirely on his own – the CEA had decided spending the night with Gena would provide him an easier means of venturing out to do what needed to be done. Harath might have been on the look-out for him sneaking out of the watchman's quarters. But all he needed to do with Yunusov was leave the man sexually sated and somewhat drunk to insure he would sleep heavily and thus not catch out his erstwhile "lover" leaving his bed in the dead of night. And Yunusov's makeshift rooms in the main of the warehouse within an upstairs loft that usually housed lading checkpoint offices was as well closer to where Jack needed to be during his final nocturnal undertakings.

Rising slowly, so as to produce as little movement of the mattress as possible, Jack collected his clothes from where they lay heaped on the floor. He quickly pulled the dark denim jeans over his legs and the navy-logoed black tee-shirt over his head, the seemingly everyday casual clothes especially chosen to blend into the darkness. Then he slipped on the holster holding his Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. Posing as a hired bodyguard had meant there was no need to even pretend to hide his gun. That he was constantly armed while in the warehouse was an expected detail of his position and, though the G17 wasn't his U.N.C.L.E. Special, Jack found the handgun – at least in terms of primary purpose – an adequate substitute for his usual firearm.

Yunusov turned over onto his side, causing Jack to freeze momentarily in his preparations. But then the patterned snoring resumed and the enforcement agent released a slow breath. He had plied Gena with enough vodka to hopefully keep him sleeping heavily for several more hours at least. That was all the time Jack needed. Then he would come back here and reluctantly retake his place in the Russian's bed.

Carrying his shoes in one hand, Jack descended the open loft staircase. Once back on the main floor of the warehouse, he briefly sat on the bottom step and put on his black sneakers. He knew where the guards, all drawn from the ranks of the Russian Mafia henchmen, were stationed throughout the space. Kyle and Alfred had relayed those essentials to him days ago. He had to go to the docking garage, and that was risky, yet he managed to avoid being spotted because of his advance knowledge of the guard setup. Under an overturned crate that usually served as seating for the guards during their coffee breaks he found the small sack of explosive charges Pedro had planted for him. He was grateful beyond measure that none of the guards, with the crate being so familiar to them, had bothered to check under it this night. From a secret pocket within his holster he drew out a slender electronic lockpick.

He moved toward the position in the garage of the first of the twenty loaded trunks. With speed and precision he utilized the sensitive lockpick to spring the delicate electronic mechanism from the specialized padlock being used to secure the bay door of the truck. He slid open the steel barrier with practiced quiet and agilely leaped up inside the cargo area of the vehicle. Inside he planted one of the explosive charges in a location where it was not readily visible but that would be readily discovered with a reasonable search. He had to be careful to insure it looked like the charge had not been intended to be found, yet that it would indeed be found by the Russian Mafia muscle, a precarious balance to maintain. Once this was done, he nimbly jumped down again to the ground, re-secured the padlock and moved on to the next truck.

His progress was not quite as fast as he would have liked, but he had to be careful of the guards as they made rounds. He kept to the shadows behind the large vehicles. Finally he set the charge within the last truck and moved stealthily back out of the garage. He was in the loading dock area once more, waiting in a hidden corner for one of guards to complete his inspection round, when he noticed it. That crate behind the wheeled wall of which Pedro had made note to Laura. Presumably the special cargo with which Gena was so uncomfortable.

Though Jack hated veering from carefully laid-out plans, the lure of that cargo was great. Perhaps he could ascertain what it was. Perhaps he could even destroy it. He did have the one explosive button on the waistband of his jeans.

Moving with cat-like grace behind the portable wall, he crawled slowly toward the crate so that his body never rose above the shadow line provided by the bulk of the box itself. Steel straps held electronic padlocks in place on several different points of the crate. Taking out his lockpick once more, he maneuvered the probe into the mechanism of the first of the bolts, and caught the sound of a satisfying release hum. With a devilish grin he fitted the lockpick into the next padlock and began working at it. And then it happened: the lights suddenly glared to full illumination around him and he turned his head to face the guns of David Islenleque and five lackeys who wore the unmistakable uniform of Thrush muscle.

"Un vieux proverbe dit: Curiosity killed the cat," stated Islenleque smugly. "Or didn't they teach you that in U.N.C.L.E. Survival School, Monsieur Valdar?"  
{Translation: There is an old maxim that says:}

Jack said nothing, but inwardly he cursed his own stupidity in so readily taking the bait in this efficient Thrush mousetrap.

"Your gun, Monsieur Valdar," Islenleque demanded bluntly. "Remove it slowly from the holster and place in on the floor behind you and toward me."

With no real choice, Jack did as bid.

"Now on your feet and against the partition, facing the wall."

Again Jack did as ordered just as Gena Yunusov, barefoot and wearing only a loosely tied robe to cover his nakedness, came into the area behind the rolling wall.

"So you caught your U.N.C.L.E. man in the act, eh?" Gena asked indifferently.

"Oui," allowed David with a smirk as two of his henchman cuffed Jack's hands behind his back.

Gena shrugged. "Personally I preferred catching him in another act."

David laughed. "I'm sure you did. Never let it be said Thrush does not offer fringe benefits to its allies."

Jack was seething. How could he have been so naïve as to allow himself to be set up like this? It was the act of a rookie agent, a damn greenstick.

That particular thought pushed Jack's anger over the top. He slammed his body back against the Thrush man closest to him, knocking him heavily to the floor. Dropping to his knees, he rammed a shoulder into the calves of the second man, bringing him down as well. Then he scrambled forward toward his gun, but Islenleque's unruffled reaction was quick. The Frenchman's bullet zinged with surgical precision into the back of Jack's left thigh, sending his body sprawling and the G17 careening off into the far corner of the mock enclosure.

"The next bullet finds its mark in the back of your skull, Monsieur Valdar," warned David in a frigid voice. "So may I tactfully suggest you have made sufficient foolish moves for one night, n'est-ce pas?"

Jack gritted his teeth and kept silent. He didn't move a muscle from his awkward sprawl on the concrete floor. His thigh stung from the bullet wound, but more his pride stung from the total rout of his own estimation of himself as a competent professional.

"Peut-être, Monsieur Valdar," taunted David with chilly disdain, "you would like to see for what you relinquished your freedom and will eventually forfeit your life?"

With that Islenleque signaled to Yunusov with his gun. The Russian moved to the crate; then squatted to work the combinations on the remaining padlocks and release all the steel securing straps. He seemed reluctant to do more, which Jack noted, though Valdar's own internal censure of himself was too intense at this moment to make any coherent deduction regarding the man's hesitation.

"Go on, Gena;" prompted David, "show him."

With a small sigh, Yunusov ruffled through layers of excelsior before finally removing something from the crate. Then he shifted his position to kneel beside Jack. The enforcement agent turned his head to contemptuously look the Russian Mafia boss right in the eye as Yunusov opened the glass bottle he held in his hand. Gena subsequently poured a bit of liquid from the open bottle onto Jack's cheek, letting it dribble down toward his mouth.

Jack spit as the substance coated his lips.

"Gun oil," he stated glumly.

"Tel qu'il est," acknowledged David with supercilious self-satisfaction fully evident in his tone.  
{Translation: Such as it is.}

Then Islenleque ordered his underlings to take Jack to the watchman's quarters and secure him properly within one of the bedrooms there.

Since his injured leg seemed unwilling to support his weight, Jack found himself being half dragged from the warehouse. All he could do at the moment was hope Islenleque would himself be fooled into thinking the explosive charges the captured agent had set on the trucks to be the entirety of U.N.C.L.E.'s strategy to halt the completion of the arms transaction.

* * *

"Sir, I respectfully request permission to make an endeavor at retrieving Agent Valdar from Thrush captivity," spoke Natasha Kuryakin to Napoleon Solo with all the formality necessary to properly recognize their relative positions within the chain of command of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement…

_As they had both assumed his cover blown by Islenleque, Natasha wasn't exactly surprised to find her partner had been captured by Thrush. What did surprise her was the callous way he was treated by his captors. Oh, she had heard all the tales and read all the facts about Thrush, but she had never actually been exposed to their enemy's pitilessness when it came to U.N.C.L.E. agents._

_Several uniformed Thrushes half-dragged Jack, a bullet wound in the back of his leg bleeding profusely, into the watchman's quarters. As Nikolaevna she of course imperiously demanded to know what was going on. The armed Islenleque, who followed closely after his lackeys, explained that, as he had warned her, the man was part of an international law enforcement group, had just been caught red-handed in the warehouse breaking into the cargo, and was thus a problem that his own organization would now handle in their own way._

_Jack's eyes warned Natasha to do nothing that might jeopardize the mission. The ending was too close and held the promise of dealing their enemy too much devastation to risk, and they both knew it. But merely saying that standing back and letting the next minutes unfold without intervention was difficult for Natasha was not expressing even a fraction of her frustration._

_Without even blinking, Islenleque cracked Jack smartly across the back of his head with the butt of the agent's own G17 that the Frenchman had retrieved from the warehouse floor. Natasha had no doubt Islenleque maliciously enjoyed the perverse irony of hitting Jack with his own weapon. Slumped unconscious between the Thrush muscle supporting him, Jack was subsequently manhandled onto the stripped mattress in one of the bedrooms, his still cuffed hands positioned awkwardly under his body. His clothes were roughly searched for hidden gadgetry, no mind at all given to his injury. In the end those clothes were forcibly pulled and partially cut away from his body, since the Thrushies had no intention of uncuffing the agent's hands. Then his ankles were cuffed together as well._

_Harath, carrying a small kit, came into the room then and proceeded to glide some sort of electronic detection wand over the entirety of Jack's prone body. When the wand passed over the area in the abdomen where the U.N.C.L.E. transceiver was imbedded under the agent's skin, Harath nodded shortly to Islenleque. The chemist drew a surgical blade from the kit and, without applying so much as a topical antiseptic, cut open the flesh and removed the tiny unit. He handed it to Islenleque, who dropped it indifferently to the floor and then crushed it efficiently under the heel of his shoe._

_At least she had managed to convince Harath that the incision and the bullet wound should be bandaged, Islenleque agreeing because, as he stated, he had no wish for the U.N.C.L.E. man to bleed to death. The Thrush had other plans…_

Sitting in his office at NY headquarters with, seated across from him, his longtime friend, former field partner and the father of the current agent with whom he was now in a communicator conversation, Solo kept his voice firm and no-nonsense.

"You are aware, Natasha, that electronic gel only provides a short duration of effective tracking ability," Napoleon wanted to insure the young woman fully comprehended all the limitations. "Eight hours at most."

"Yes, sir," she acknowledged, knowing that duration was fading fast with every passing minute…

_Very early the next morning, the Thrush contingent made ready to move Jack to another location, no doubt one of their own satrapies somewhere in the area. When Natasha saw him being again partially dragged from the bedroom where he had been locked up with several of his captors for what little had remained of the night before, the agent was sporting fresh bruises about his face and upper body. The livid purple-and-blue markings provided blatant evidence of the brutal treatment that had been administered him overnight, treatment she could not fail to hear through the wall of her own room. His right eye was blacked and minus the green contact lens he had worn as Ceallach, leaving him with a mismatched gaze. A pair of sweatpants from his own wardrobe had been inspected and deemed safe, but such was all Jack wore against the chill of the winter day._

_A pair of Thrush guards stood holding the U.N.C.L.E. agent between them as they waited for Harath. The chemist, his job at the warehouse apparently done, was to be part of the traveling party escorting Jack away from the complex. Natasha saw that, though Jack's ankles had undoubtedly been unshackled so that the sweatpants could be drawn over his legs, those ankles were shackled again now. That fact more than his actual physical condition was the cause for the Thrushes pulling along the U.N.C.L.E. CEA rather than simply allowing him to walk. And she was totally shocked to see blood streaking from wherever Jack placed his feet. Evidently he had been less than cooperative about having those shackles refastened._

_Islenleque came in, arrogantly announcing the explosives Jack had set in the trucks had been discovered and deactivated. Natasha hadn't known anything about the charges, but she let her surprise translate easily into that of Nikolaevna at her bodyguard's supposed betrayal._

_In the few remaining moments before he was taken forcibly to their vehicle by the Thrushes, Natasha took her one chance._

_Reaching up, she cupped Jack's cheek lightly._

"_Ah, Ceallach, I am so disappointed in you," she spoke in the Russian-tinged voice of Nikolaevna. Then she let her touch graze lingeringly over his chest, as if ruminating on the possibility of what might have been between them._

_She knew Jack felt the characteristic sting of the electronic gel she, just before touching him, had squeezed into her hand from a tube hidden discreetly in the pocket of her robe. The gel absorbed so quickly into the skin, the few seconds her hand had rested on his cheek and chest was enough to conceal any visual evidence of its application…_

"Even if you are successful in locating him," Illya put his own salient point into the conversation, "Mr. Valdar may already be dead when you find him."

"I do know that," admitted Natasha, "but I have to at least try. Please allow me to at least make an attempt to get him out."

Both men set their eyes appraisingly on the holographic image floating in the room before them. Her determination to make this attempt at saving her partner was written plainly in every tense line of her body.

Napoleon glanced over at his own one-time partner. Clearly reflected in his hazel-brown eyes were memories of all the times during their own years in the field one of them had looked the same way when the other of the pair had been captured by the enemy. The ice-blue eyes that met his held the same memories.

The mission had been to this point a dramatic achievement. None of the micro-trackers had been discovered, thanks to Jack's ploy of setting the charges on the trucks to lead Thrush to believe those explosives U.N.C.L.E.'s chosen method of halting the arms transport operation. Right now several U.N.C.L.E. facilities, including NY HQ, were monitoring the progress of those weapon-loaded trucks. Once all the vehicles had made what were considered permanent or at least long-term stops, strike teams at the ready in all of the mid-Atlantic and New England states would be loosed to attack the targets tracked closest to their specific locations. Timing was of course critical, but there was no doubt such a concerted series of simultaneous assaults on a number of satrapies and armories on the East Coast of the U.S. would be a crippling blow for Thrush.

Both the Section Chiefs currently seated in the office of the Number 1 of Section 1 for the North American division of U.N.C.L.E. were organizationally pleased with the result of what had transpired thus far. The assigned undercover team had performed admirably, coordinating their separate pieces of the mission into a faultlessly cohesive whole. More personally, both men were inordinately proud of how Natasha had handled herself during her first true excursion into the field as a Section II operative. She had adhered to orders, yet used a bit of creative license when necessary. She had planted the micro-trackers with a cautious attention to detail that had resulted in decisive accomplishment of this linchpin of the entire plan. She had kept her undercover persona clear of Thrush's suspicions, and yet managed a ruse that provided the possibility of rescuing her Thrush-tagged and captured partner.

This now was the question: Should she be permitted to follow-up on that possibility? And Kuryakin understood that Solo was leaving that decision ultimately in his hands. Natasha was his daughter and there was no doubt she would be putting herself at further and perhaps futile risk with that follow-up. Yet she was indeed his daughter, and thus abandoning her partner when there was even a slim chance of rescue was not in her DNA. He knew Napoleon had already accepted this fact, but that the Continental Chief would not ignore the feelings of his own long-time partner while exercising his authority as the head of U.N.C.L.E. That just wasn't in Solo's DNA.

Illya took a deep breath and nodded shortly. Napoleon smiled slightly and gave a short nod in return.

"Natasha, Agent Allezez currently at your location can provide you a car as well as a few helpful devices out of his field kit. Now, go rescue Jack's ass," Napoleon vocalized this decision with uncharacteristic coarseness, which made Illya's lips curve into his characteristic half-smile. That unexpected vulgarity only served to emphasize Solo's sheer intensity of emotion regarding the responsibilities to one another shared between the very best of field partners.

Natasha's features visibly relaxed.

"I'll bring him back, sir," she pledged, the possibility the best she might be able to do was bring back a body for decent burial unspoken but not unrealized in her tone. "Agent Kuryakin out."

* * *

Delphina Reikedahl had seen neither hide nor hair of Napoleon Solo since they had shared that impromptu New Year's Eve dance a week ago, and that fact was starting to seriously worry her. With no exact plan on how she was to get an image of the bio-drone schematics and programming imbedded into the powder lucisorqe compound of the light manipulation suit, much of her on-the-fly tactics to accomplish the feat relied heavily on her sensory connection with Solo and his anticipated soft-hearted reaction to her "plight". Yet now it appeared he was pointedly steering clear of her, as his one-time partner and constant friend so desired him to do.

Delphina had seen nothing of Illya Kuryakin for the past week either. She felt as if she was being segmented away from those within U.N.C.L.E. who might in the end prove of some benefit to her own secret cause. Jack Valdar hadn't come back for lessons in mind focus in more than a week as well. Truth be told, the only U.N.C.L.E. personnel with whom the Thrush technological residual had any recent contact were the Section V guards who brought her meals and clean linens. For the moment, she was being left exclusively to herself here in this security holding cell.

Pacing the entire frontal perimeter of the small chamber for at least the twentieth time in the last twenty minutes, Delphina characteristically worried the knuckle of her right forefinger between her teeth.

"_What if it doesn't work, Papa?" she unspokenly questioned. "What if I can't manage to find the means to protect myself as you so wanted? What if I am left with nothing? No Niles to aid me; no Solo to grant me possible immunity? I want to survive, Papa. I want…"_

Her nonverbal discourse stalled as all she could think coherently was _"I want. I want. I want."_ But what exactly she wanted was completely eluding both her mental and emotional grasp.

The frustrating exercise of trying to pin down what her current predicament was driving her to realize about herself halted abruptly as the figure of Illya Kuryakin came into view within the cellblock hallway. Two very purposeful-looking men and a white-coated woman Delphina recognized as a doctor from her stint in U.N.C.L.E.'s medical facility accompanied the Section III head. Gathering the scattered remnants of her thoughts, Delphina utilized all her skills in disciplined concentration to push those loose ends forcefully aside and instead center solely on the moment that was about to unfold.

"Ah, Mr. Kuryakin," she greeted him in her most controlled voice, "it has been some time since I have had the pleasure of your company."

Illya made no answer as he punched in the code to release the door, letting the two men and the doctor enter the cell precincts before entering himself.

"Why such an entourage, Mr. Kuryakin?" Delphina inquired with a raised eyebrow.

The doctor had set her black bag on the bed and now removed a syringe from within its inner reaches. Delphina eyed the needle warily as the white-coated woman proceeded to check the liquid contents for air bubbles by ejecting a small amount of fluid from the tip.

"Doesn't U.N.C.L.E. reserve truth serum for more formal interrogations?" the Thrush taunted with an attempt at nonchalance, but there was tension in her body that belied the ease of her words.

"No truth serum," noted Illya without expression. "The doctor is going to administer a predetermined-as-safe dose of a simple sedative."

"A sedative?" repeated Delphina with a bewildered blink.

"Yes," Illya pronounced without further explanation.

"Sit on the bed please," ordered the doctor.

Delphina continued to stand, confusion plainly evident in her eyes.

Illya gestured to the two men nearby and they each grasped one of Delphina's forearms not in the least roughly and pressed her down into a seated position on the edge of the bed. Delphina didn't actively resist. She didn't understand what was happening and thus her reactions were slow.

"These men are from my own Section," supplied Illya cryptically. "Thus I trust them not to reveal anything that has gone on here unless I give them my personal okay to do so."

"You mean Napoleon doesn't know…" began Delphina as comprehension of at least this one point struck home.

"Napoleon doesn't need to know at the moment," interrupted Illya decisively. "This is no more than a preventive measure."

"Roll up her sleeve," the doctor instructed the Section III agent holding Delphina's right arm. The man did so with quickness and efficiency, afterwards repositioning his clasp to the Thrush's upper arm to give the doctor a clear field. The doctor turned Delphina's arm over, located an appropriate vein on the inner side of her forearm near her elbow and pierced the needle into the flesh.

"What are you trying to prevent, Mr. Kuryakin?" demanded Delphina as she watched the fluid from the syringe being steadily pushed into her vein.

"Let us but say I do not trust you, Ms. Reikedahl," Illya stated evenly, "and leave it at that."

Delphina's intense reactions to drugs made this a gamble and Illya was well aware of that fact. Still, he considered it but a calculated risk. Though there was no evidence to suggest she had been able to somehow communicate with any of her organization since her incarceration, with someone as genetically altered and rigorously trained as Delphina, such always remained an undetected possibility. And it was a possibility Illya was not going to allow to jeopardize the final ending of the Russian Arms Affair. Insuring the Thrush technological residual would not be conscious to pay attention to any rumors or innuendos that might fly around HQ regarding the planned U.N.C.L.E. strikes was the only way the Section Chief felt positive he could completely prevent her from warning Thrush. Napoleon had not approved this venture and it was doubtful the Section I Chief would have done so if broached regarding it, but Illya had no reservations about acting on his own initiative in this particular regard.

The syringe emptied, the doctor removed the needle from Delphina's flesh and nodded toward Kuryakin. Then she snapped shut her black bag and removed it from the bed, indicating with a wave of her hand that the Section III agents lay the prisoner down on the mattress.

The two men guided flat the body of a passive Delphina. Drugs were her weakness and she knew better than to attempt a struggle she couldn't win.

"Pleasant dreams, Ms. Reikedahl," commented Illya coolly before he and his 'entourage' prepared to make their exit.

"Jeg ønsker ikke å drømme lenger," retorted Delphina, her voice suddenly filled with all the petulance of a despondent child.  
{Translation: I do not want to dream anymore.}

It took a minute for Illya to properly translate the words but, once he had, he found himself gazing at her with surprised curiosity.

"Why not?" he asked.

Delphina turned on her side, her back toward the one she considered her current tormentor, and curled her body into a tight ball, instinctively protecting herself from the world around her.

"Go away please," she entreated desolately, her voice minus any of its usual control and undoubtedly shaky.

Illya stared for a moment or two at the figure lying turned away from him on the bed, her defensively set back being used as a barrier to hide the increasing tightness into which she burrowed into a fetal position. And it was true to say that within those few moments for the very first time he saw in Delphina Reikedahl what he assumed Napoleon always saw when he looked at her: a forlorn child attempting in any way possible to guard herself from a humanity she understood slyly scorned her.

"The doctor will be in periodically to check on you," was the only further statement Illya made before he and the others retreated from the cell, leaving Delphina as alone as in the innermost core of her being she always knew herself to be.

* * *

Normally eight hours would be plenty of time for an U.N.C.L.E. agent to successfully track a target. The problem was that Natasha didn't have those eight hours of the gel's maximum efficacy as a starting point. Thrush had maneuvered Jack away from the warehouse compound almost four hours before she herself had completed the last of her tasks as Nikolaevna. Then she had been driven to Newark Airport by one of Yunusov's henchmen. She had needed to go all the way through to boarding the scheduled flight for Moscow before a Section III agent, who had been set up as her contact, secretly guided her out through a jet-way security door. So she had maybe a little more than two hours to try and track her partner…

_If it wasn't so uncomfortable a way to be imprisoned, it might even be sardonically amusing, this tendency Thrush had to secure U.N.C.L.E. agents in suspended postures from chains attached to walls or ceilings. Right now it was actually thick steel cables from which Jack was suspended. Those leads were attached to a bar-like apparatus that slid across his back and under his armpits. His arms were stretched out across the bar's length ending with his wrists fitted into manacles integrated at each end of the expanse. The flat-sided rod dropped on its cables from the ceiling of a lab of some kind, and could be raised and lowered by an electronic mechanism. Currently the entire contrivance was raised sufficiently so Jack's feet cleared the floor by a good twelve inches. Thus the bones under his shoulders and those in his wrists were taking the totality of his weight, an extremely agonizing position._

_A vise-like contraption consisting of two interconnecting steel dowels was locked across Jack's knees, with a similar but smaller one binding his ankles. Both these odd restraining devices had steel cables of their own, their spans currently adjusted to fasten tautly into sturdy rings set in the floor. Thus he was unable to bend his knees or flex his feet, making gaining leverage on the main bar by swinging up his legs to its height a complete physical impossibility._

_The agent was still dressed in just a pair of drawstring-removed and thus loose-fitting sweatpants, torso and feet bare. The shallow bandaged incision in his exposed abdomen occasionally dribbled blood. The bullet wound in this left thigh ached abominably and was leaking gore fairly steadily through its wrapping. His feet stung from a multitude of scrapes and small cuts. His blackened right eye throbbed, as did his bruised jaw and upper body. His head was pounding from the crack he had received to the skull. His vision really wasn't too clear either. And to top it all off he was fast losing circulation in his arms. In short, his physical situation was far less than ideal…_

A program in her specially-equipped cell phone allowed Natasha to home in on the signal from the electronic gel. She cursed to herself as the first triangulation was made by the software, putting Jack's location at somewhere in midtown Manhattan more than an hour in traffic from her current position at Newark Airport. And that was assuming he wasn't moved by Thrush before she could further pinpoint the location…

_Islenleque made his way into the room behind a female dressed in a white lab coat and two Thrush henchmen carrying a familiar crate between them._

_Gun oil? They were bringing gun oil into a lab?_

_Jack watched as much as he could from his awkward position, noting that the woman used a handheld controller to input a security code. His agent-trained brain stored the distinctive tones of that audible cipher almost without conscious effort. The code resulted in the release from the wall of a type of specialty container, much like U.N.C.L.E.'s own safety box in its lab facilities. The Thrush muscle then carefully placed the entire crate in that container._

_David looked up at Jack and smiled a very calculating smile._

_"I can see you are wondering why gun oil is being so secured, Monsieur Valdar. A man should never die with unanswered questions waiting on his tongue, n'est-ce pas? Therefore allow me to assuage your curiosity."…_

Natasha knew her driving at the moment was undeniably reckless, but time was of the essence. She could not afford to politely wade through snarled Manhattan traffic. She had to force the issue at every possible juncture, cutting off other vehicles with throw-caution-to-the-winds daring. She had to save Jack…

_"This gun oil is so much more than mere gun oil, as you will soon find out for yourself."_

_Islenleque nodded to the female lab tech. The woman retrieved one of the small bottles from the crate. She then triggered the slide of the specialty container back into the wall by pressing in an entirely different code on the same controller she had used before. The tech walked toward David and handed the remote unit to him, but retained the bottle of gun oil that she slipped into a pocket of her lab coat._

_"If our friend Gena was here at this moment," stated Islenleque with definite amusement in his tone, "he would no doubt relish performing this particular ministration on your person. But, since I am not of his persuasion, I have decided to let Xara here have that pleasure. Appréciez le début du processus, Monsieur Valdar, car vous n'apprécierez certainement pas autant la fin."_  
_{Translation: Enjoy the beginning of the process, Mr. Valdar, for you certainly will not enjoy the end.}…_

By all that was right and just, it truly wasn't possible, was it? The tracking gel leading Natasha to Jack seemed to be leading her as well right to the mid-town headquarters and low security lab facilities of the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation…

_With that, Islenleque abandoned the lab – and Jack – into the hands of Xara._

_The Thrush lab tech looked the U.N.C.L.E. agent up and down._

_"Though you may in the end wish you hadn't, you'll more than likely survive this," she assured him after completing her visual scrutiny. "I know of only two previous deaths caused in this manner and you seem a healthy enough specimen. Of course this time we will be using much more of the lucisorqe than we ever did before."_

_Jack pointedly made no comment, though he registered the unexpected mention of lucisorqe._

_Xara shrugged. "I imagine he will kill you later. Yet, if there is a point to be made, David is always sure to make it. And rendering useless U.N.C.L.E.'s current top field agent is certainly a point any savvy Thrush would wish to make in order to catch favorable attention from Central."_

_Jack wanted to retort that all of Thrush only had one point every one of its followers was sure to make, the ridiculous belief in their own supposed superiority. But he bit his tongue and remained quiet._

_Xara eyed him over once more, her scrutiny this time much more lascivious than scientific. "In any case, I certainly don't object to David assigning me this task. It definitely is something to spice up a boring day in the labs."_

_That said, she grabbed a small stepstool from under one of the lab tables and pulled it toward Jack. Climbing up on the stool brought her eye-level with the U.N.C.L.E. agent and her body in extremely close proximity to his. Satisfied with her improved vantage point, Xara reached out and expertly pinched the remaining green contact from Jack's left eye. She casually dropped the lens into a pocket of her lab coat as she drew out a pair of surgical gloves from that same pocket. After slipping the gloves onto her hands, she retrieved the gun oil from the opposite pocket of her coat…_

Natasha walked into the lobby of the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation. The architecture was very modern, very impressive. Her cell-phone tracking software was pinpointing Jack's location as below this level of the building. She knew there were some labs located below street level, but they were very low-tech type facilities. The Foundation owned a full-service lab complex in a rural area of upstate New York. The labs here in its Manhattan headquarters were approved for only experiments requiring no special safety precautions. It thus seemed a strange place to secure as valuable a prize as U.N.C.L.E.'s North American CEA, but then again maybe its very unsuitability was key.

In any case, Natasha knew she had to get into those basement labs and that was not going to be an easy task. The place was rift with private security of every type, from guards to monitoring screens.

Glancing over at the main reception desk she noticed the woman seated on the high stool behind the marble counter was very pregnant. She might be able to employ a sympathy tack with that receptionist…

_Opening the cap on the bottle, Xara poured a small puddle of the gun oil into one gloved hand. Then she reached out and slathered the liquid onto Jack's neck, rubbing fully around the nape and along both sides of his collarbone. She repeated the process of pouring oil into one gloved hand and then worked that over his chest; she poured again and stroked the liquid down his back; again and kneaded along the entire length of each of his forcibly outstretched arms. She pulled the gauze bandage from the incision on his abdomen and swabbed the oil into the wound with the tips of her fingers, leaving a burning sensation in their wake. Jack didn't understand exactly what the reason for this "gun oil massage" might be, but he doubted it was to promote smooth skin or relieve tense muscles._

_Without pause the Thrush continued to pour gun oil into her hand and then smear it onto his body. She slipped her hand down the loose waistband of his sweatpants and coated his hips, his buttocks and even his privates. Jack swallowed hard as her hand glided steadily over his penis and testicles._

_"Not as resolutely stoic as you would like all Thrush to believe then, Mr. Valdar?" Xara taunted as she pressed her body impossibly close to his for a long moment._

_Her hair and eyes were black as night, her features possessed a middle-Eastern cast, her pointed chin served as the apex of a delicate heart-shaped face. She was physically undeniably pretty, but her soul was tainted with all the mental ugliness that was Thrush._

_More oil and her insistent hand was massaging one of his thighs from inside the waistband of the sweatpants. And then the other thigh, though mercifully she made no attempt to remove the wrapping covering the bullet wound there, instead merely skimming her palm over the linen._

_Jack made a point of concentrating on the fact that the hand touching him so intimately was gloved like that of a doctor. He was being prepared for some sort of bodily ordeal, he reminded himself. He was being tortured… or at least he soon would be…_

"Excuse me," Natasha brought herself to the attention of the receptionist. "Might you have a public restroom?" The agent punctuated her request by bringing her fingers briefly to her lips as she held back a hoarse choke deep in her throat.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have any facilities open to the general public," the receptionist answered. "Feeling ill?"

Natasha nodded mutely and then swallowed pointedly. "Morning sickness," she acknowledged, "only it seems to hit more often than just in the mornings."

The receptionist clucked compassionately. "I had the same problem in the beginning. How far along?"

"Just six weeks." Natasha covered her mouth delicately as she choked once more. "But I'm not sure I'm looking forward to the rest of this!"

The receptionist smiled gently. "It really does get better," she assured the other woman.

Natasha nodded again and then choked a bit more persistently, her hand flying up toward her mouth.

The receptionist eyed her with concern.

"Listen, I'm not supposed to do this, but there's a public tour going on in the labs right now anyhow. I'll tell the guard you're a latecomer and send you on down there. There's a bathroom two doors to the right of the elevator bank on that level." With that the receptionist picked up an orange visitor's badge hung on a gray cord and shimmied a bit awkwardly off her perch. Then she came around to the front of the counter and slipped the cord over Natasha's neck. "Just join up with the group there when you're done and come out with them. No one will know the difference."

"Thanks ever so much!" Natasha gave voice to her gratitude before clamping her hand to her mouth once more and choking back another assumed retch.

The receptionist led her quickly to the down elevator bank and spoke with the guard, telling him Natasha was part of the tour group currently in the labs. The guard nodded and pressed the call button for her. Natasha quickly slipped into the car when it arrived. She mouthed a silent "Thanks again" to the receptionist as the doors closed, sending the U.N.C.L.E. agent into the underground premises of the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation…

_Xara had worked her hand down each of Jack's thighs to his knees. The vise manacle stopped any further progress down his legs from her current position. Accordingly the Thrush stepped down off the stool and pushed it aside. Kneeling on the floor, she slipped one oil-laden hand up under his pant leg from the elasticized ankle opening. She worked the liquid into that calf and then moved her hand up and under the other pant leg and smoothed oil over his opposite calf. Finally she caressed every inch of both his feet, even between his toes. The oil stung over the many abrasions there and Jack bit his lip to keep from gasping._

_"There!" Xara noted with satisfaction in her tone. "Now you are ready,"_

_"But ready for what?" Jack could not resist the sarcastic retort._

_Xara looked up at him from her kneeling position on the floor. She tilted her head a little to one side._

_"You really have no idea, do you? My noble man from U.N.C.L.E., remember fondly these past moments between us as they shall be the last in which your senses tell you truthfully what is happening around you."_

_The Thrush stood and fondled Jack's groin through his sweatpants until she was sure his breathing had sufficiently accelerated. With a smirk she then left the room and Jack heard the distinctive sounds – clicks and thumps and airborne hisses – as the lab was fully locked down…_

In one of the stalls of the lab-level restroom, Natasha checked the tracking software on her cell phone. The signal was intermittent now and weak, but it still seemed to indicate Jack's position at a point below her own. Yet she was in the basement of the building. Where else below was there to go?

Perhaps there was an underground parking garage, though she didn't know of one. Or perhaps Jack was secreted in a subway tunnel below the building. She couldn't be sure and soon she wouldn't have the tracking signal to guide her.

She decided she would look for an elevator or stairway to perhaps a parking level. She'd deal with the public subway tunnel possibility if this one didn't pan out. That seemed the wisest plan of action since she might not get another opportunity to search these private premises…

_Within but minutes after Xara's exit Jack focused in on the distinctive hisses. They were coming from the air vents. Gas of some kind?_

_He tried not to breath and suddenly found he didn't have to try very hard. Quickly he realized the vents weren't pumping anything in, but rather sucking something out. Oxygen._

_He pulled air into his lungs as fast as he could. It wasn't fast enough. He felt lightheaded, straining desperately for sufficient breath, and then he felt something like freezing ants crawling all over him…_

Natasha crept cautiously about the lab level of the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation, keeping clear of the tour group, the security guards and the lab personnel. She investigated the hallways for any access to a possible parking level, sure that such access would not be through one of the labs themselves.

After fifteen minutes of searching she had found nothing and was becoming frustrated. Then she passed one of the many storage closets and something caught her attention. A closed panel was set in the wall by this particular closet. Not so unusual honestly. Probably an electrical access panel, but still.

Warily Natasha glanced around to be sure no one was nearby. Then she took a flat lockpick from her pocket and slipped it under the panel cover to pry it open. Inside was an electronic keypad. The closet was locked. And not just simply locked, but locked with an electronic code. What could be stored in there that such security was deemed necessary?

Glancing about once more she drew up her cell phone and placed it against an open area on the plate surrounding the keypad. Then she set to work using a program in the phone to decode the lock combination, number by number. The task wasn't as quick to pull off as she would have liked, but fortunately at the moment the guards seemed more intent on trailing the group touring the lab than performing routine checks. She managed to get the closet door opened, close the wall panel back over the keypad and get herself inside the closet, shutting the door after her, just as a guard sauntered down from the far end of the hall.

Exhaling a breath of sheer relief, Natasha played a light from her cell phone about the area. It was a closet, with lab coats in various sizes hanging from several racks. Yet a closet was not all it was. The back wall, upon careful examination, showed the distinctive sliding door of an elevator. But of course another wall panel graced the area beside it.

Natasha sighed softly. Lockpicking of any kind, whether manual or electronic, was not her forte. She would have much preferred to attempt a precisely aimed shot at the panel, disabling any security apparatus. But that wasn't an option at the moment, even using a silencer. She simply couldn't risk it, even if she targeted the internal workings of the keypad properly on her first try.

Carefully prying loose the protective plate, Natasha focused her cell-phone flashlight on the exposed internal area. What it revealed wasn't any sort of numeric code keypad gadget. Her mere touch "awakened" a sensor and an electronic voice requested "State the password."

"Great," she thought gloomily, "just great."

Ospreye's headquarters. A private elevator, perhaps for use by the man himself. What would be a likely password?

"State the password," the voice stipulated a second time.

Natasha was at a loss. She wasn't personally familiar with Ospreye. She knew of him only what was public record and what was recorded in U.N.C.L.E.'s research files.

"This is the final advisory. State the password," came the electronic demand.

Yet she did know something more, didn't she? Something that, but a little more than two weeks ago, none outside of Thrush had known. She prayed her unexpected memory wasn't playing her false.

"En søt prøveversjon," she said clearly, hoping against hope her hunch would prove correct and that her accent was on target for a language she didn't speak.

"Possibilities pleasantly perfume the air," the electronic voice literally cooed in counterpoint as the doors to the elevator slid open in invitation…

_Icicle knives of shuddering sensation sliced their way over every inch of Jack's skin. His breathing was coming in uncomfortable huffs and wheezes. His eyes burned. His ears were ringing. The inside of his nose throbbed. His tongue was swollen. His fingertips tingled painfully._

_He wasn't being suffocated to death exactly, though there was definitely less than a normal amount of oxygen in the room. Yet something was indeed happening to his body. Something his mind couldn't grasp…_

Natasha fitted the silencer onto her G19 and held the equipped weapon at the ready as she rode the private elevator down to some unknown location in the bowels of the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation. She didn't have her Special, so no sleep darts. Thus, when the doors opened at this elevator's ultimate destination, any guards in waiting would have to go down with finality.

She checked the tracking program on her cell phone once more. As she had known it would, the signal had disappeared. She would have to find Jack's exact location now entirely on instinct, intuition and luck.

"Be with me in spirit, Dyadya," she pleaded quietly. "I need your kind of skills right now."

The elevator doors slid aside. Natasha fired instinctively at the one guard securing the immediate perimeter, hitting him square between the eyes. Her mind registered that this elevator was most probably used by Ospreye as a strictly private means of transportation to this level, whatever this level was. Since, wherever he went, Ospreye was usually accompanied by at least one if not more personal bodyguards, the need for general security personnel at this location might easily be deemed superfluous by Thrush.

Natasha looked around discreetly. Fortunately the elevator was sheltered from general view. Thinking quickly she dragged the guard into the car and let the doors glide shut, but she didn't push any button. Instead she removed the Thrush uniform from the dead man and pulled it on over her own clothes, folding her skirt up over her hips to accommodate the jumpsuit. The guard's hip holster and gun she acquired as well, and consigned her own G19 to a deep thigh pocket of the jumpsuit.

"I'm glad Thrush goes for the unisex look," she muttered. Then she spoke at full vocal level, "Possibilities pleasantly perfume the air," and the elevator doors once more parted.

Natasha left the stripped body inside the car and stepped over it into the outer alcove…

_When had the room gone dark? Jack couldn't remember seeing the lights go out. But he certainly couldn't see anything at all now._

_And what were those sounds, like electronic pulses? Every time he tried to focus his vision on something, he heard them._

_The hissing of oxygen being sucked from the room had stopped too. Though he had an odd taste in his mouth now._

_He didn't feel the wounds on his body anymore, yet there were smells all around him that he hadn't noticed before._

_He pointedly sniffed the air (or thought he did) and felt his fingers tingle. That was strange, wasn't it?_

_He concentrated, trying to see something, anything. The pulses bounced around him and then momentarily they vanished and he glimpsed the still brightly lit room. And then all was dark again._

_He was hopelessly confused…_

Natasha sauntered casually through the hallways of this hidden level of the building, looking for all the world like she belonged there. No one questioned her presence. In her Thrush uniform, she fit right in.

She quickly ascertained that this was another floor of labs. Only these were definitely not available for public touring. These were secret labs, Thrush labs. And Natasha rather doubted that the research being performed on this level would be considered "safe" by any authorities.

She still had no idea where Jack might be in this area or even if he was being held in this area at all. Then Lady Luck smiled upon her as she crossed in front of one closed door with a guard stationed directly before it.

"How's it going?" she asked the man with a ready and radiant smile.

"Slow as molasses, that's how," he answered shortly. "Xara hasn't been back to check on this guy at all, and I really gotta take a leak. She's probably off drinking champagne with Islenleque, wordily toasting his grand coup of capturing Valdar. While I have to suffer in silence the bladder effects of too many brewskis last night."

Natasha laughed lightly. "The top guns always get to run off and celebrate giddily with today's expensive champagne while we steadfastly guard the goods and endure sober reminders of yesterday's cheap beer."

"You know it," agreed the guard disgruntledly.

"Listen," she conspiratorially suggested, "I can spell you while you hit the restroom. A sentry is a sentry. I doubt Xara cares which one of us actually stands watch outside the door."

"True enough," the guard allowed.

He bit his lip as he considered and then he shrugged.

"That guy in there isn't going anywhere anyhow, not the way they got him trussed up. I'd be ever grateful, honey. Won't be but five minutes."

Natasha gave the man her most bedazzling grin. "Sure thing."

"Code is 45-7-1-10-23," the Thrush unexpectedly revealed, "just in case Xara comes by. She never remembers the door code. Always confuses it with one of the dual combinations for the safe inside."

Natasha simply couldn't believe her good fortune. Whatever god favored her Dyadya was surely smiling on her today.

"Got it," she acknowledged with a short nod.

As he turned to leave, Natasha gave him a firm double-handed karate chop to the back of the neck, downing him instantly.

She'd have to work quickly. She punched in the code on the keypad; then dragged the unconscious guard inside the lab, closing the door behind them both. The thinness of the air in the room struck her immediately, but she didn't have time to ponder over this peculiarity.

"Co-lors."

Natasha turned at Jack's voice. He surely was trussed up good and proper, and he looked like hell hung on a pot-rack.

"Jack, you okay?"

Jack's brow furrowed as he ran his tongue over his lips as if tasting something.

"Jack?"

"Bl-ue," Jack said incoherently.

"Jack, it's Natasha."

Jack's tongue moved over his lips once more, but he didn't respond vocally.

"We have to get out of here and we don't have much time."

Jack apparently didn't hear her and he certainly wasn't seeing her. His eyes were glassy, the black of his dilated pupils unbelievably huge. Drugged. He had to be drugged.

Medical would have to deal with that. Right now she had to get him down and then find a way to get them both to safety.

Natasha noticed the stepstool and pushed it toward her suspended partner. Assessing the complex lock on the manacles on his wrists, she decided there was no time for niceties.

"Hold very still," she cautioned him as she drew the G19 and, with the best of her sharpshooter skills, sent a bullet precisely through the lock mechanism of the right handcuff.

At the muffled sound of the silenced bullet passing close to his ear, Jack remarked in bewilderment, "R-ed."

"Hopefully not too much red," Natasha stated with a small grimace, knowing she had grazed the flesh of Jack's wrist with her shot. That, however, was the very least of her worries at the moment.

The impact from the bullet had momentarily shifted the rod such that Jack's arm on that side slid free from the bar. Yet the pole remained threaded under his other armpit, leaving his feet nearly as far off the floor as previously. He hung now with his body supported by just one armpit and wrist, doubling the tension caused by his own weight. Her disoriented partner would hit the floor hard when she shot open the other shackle, but there was little else Natasha could do. Time was of the essence. Accordingly she aimed and fired precisely, popping open the second manacle. Jack fell heavily from his surely bloodlessly numb arm, Natasha herself wincing as she heard the bruising thump when he landed.

Jack rolled sideways and levered himself up on one elbow. He didn't seem to have even felt the hard landing. He was sniffing exploratorily as Natasha jumped lightly off the stool and sat down on the floor beside her partner.

The bar vises secured across Jack's knees and ankles were not something Natasha could shoot open, even with her pinpoint abilities. It was truly a shame Jack was in no condition to handle this part of the rescue for himself. His lockpicking talents were head-and-shoulders above hers. Nevertheless, she had to get these damn devices off in order to move him away from the room.

Grabbing a slender pick from inside her shoe, Natasha began working the lock mechanism on the knee device first. All the while Jack kept sniffing the air like some sort of bloodhound. Natasha was finding it most unnerving.

As she bent her head over her task, her long braid fell across the back of one of Jack's hands. He intuitively grabbed at it, swallowing hard and then tilting his head as if to better hear something. Finally he blinked, and then blinked again.

"Na-tash-a," he stumbled over her name.

"Yes, Jack," prompted Natasha, hopeful his mind was clearing at least a little. That would make it easier for her to get him out from here.

She popped the lock on the knee vise and began to work on the one secured across Jack's ankles. The air in the room was damnably thin, making the manual task a sweaty labor.

"Lu-cis-orqe," Jack spoke slowly, purposely enunciating every syllable. He held onto her braid still, now with both hands, as if it was a lifeline. "Lu-cis-orqe," he repeated, "he-re."

Natasha stopped fiddling with the vise lock for just a moment.

"There is lucisorqe here, Jack?" she questioned.

Jack's brow furrowed again. "Wh-ite," he said in obvious frustration. Then he took a deep breath, trying hard to take in air, and screwed his eyes tightly shut.

"Lu-cis-orqe he-re," he repeated determinedly.

"I understand, Jack," she tried to reassure him.

He was doing that unnerving sniffing again and now he was licking his lips as well.

"Sa-fe-ty bo-x," he tried to explain.

Natasha nodded.

Jack leaned in toward her, small pulses sounding around his ears. "I op-en," he spoke thickly.

He released her braid at last and started to crawl erratically along the floor, almost like an infant attempting such movement for the first time. The ankle vise held him back and Natasha grabbed his arm to keep him from inching further away from her. He sniffed again, but held steady while she finally got the lock open on the ankle device. He took a deep breath as if to confirm something to himself and then starting crawling slowly along once more, chest and abdomen scraping low to the floor. All the time he kept taking deep whiffs of the air and cocking his head, his tongue lolling from side-to-side in his gaping mouth. Finally he seemed to be where he wanted to be, close to one wall of the lab.

Natasha crawled up beside him. "It's here?"

"Bl-ue," he said desperately, banging one fist against the wall.

Natasha didn't understand exactly what was going on, but she did understand her partner was frustrated beyond measure. So, instead of trying to communicate with him further in words, she thrust her cell phone into his hand, foolishly confident he would realize the instrument could aid him in decoding the safety box cipher. Yet, after taking this seemingly logical action, she really wasn't sure Jack even grasped the fact he had anything at all in his hand, no less what the item actually was. After what seemed an incredibly long moment however, Jack sniffed again. He scratched his fingertips lightly over the keys of the phone, seemingly staring at them though his eyes reflected only the same glassy blankness.

The pulses Jack remembered from when Xara opened the safety box came readily into his mind. His fingers picked them hesitantly out over the buttons of the cell phone. He didn't hear the distinctive tones or even feel the retraction of the keys; instead he saw colors. Black, green, yellow, red, gray, white: silently his sensorially-befuddled brain entreated those colors to be what he thought they were.

The safety box popped open almost hitting him in the chest, but Natasha pulled him clear. Jack dropped the cell phone from now oddly spasming fingers, leaned in and glared unseeing into the box, definitely hearing pulses of some sort now.

"Lu-cis-orqe," he repeated.

"All right, Jack, we'll get rid of it," Natasha told him, not in the least sure he would comprehend what she was saying.

She pulled him to his feet, knowing she was causing him pain but equally as sure he wasn't exactly feeling it at the moment. Still, the oxygen-depleted air was making even the most routine task a struggle for her. She knew it had to be even worse for Jack in his compromised physical state, and she was grateful beyond measure that he didn't just pass out on her. Whatever other reason could be attributed to Jack's nickname of "The Granite Slab", there was no doubt whatsoever the man had the endurance of one.

Natasha zipped open the Thrush jumpsuit she was wearing, tore down the hem of her hiked up skirt and pulled out a thin bar-shaped wedge of plastique. She molded the pliant explosive to the inside of the askewly lidded crate cradled within the safety box. Then she took off one of her earrings and pulled a detonating pin from it. She pushed the pin into the deceptively innocent-looking grayish putty, knowing it would provide only a brief respite before it set off the plastique.

"I hope this safety box proves safe enough," she noted wryly as she slammed the container back into the wall, though it of course didn't relock without the secondary code. Then Natasha grabbed Jack about the waist, draped one of his arms over her shoulders and maneuvered him toward the door.

The guard had started moaning, an indication he was likely about to wake up. But she couldn't handle him and Jack both, and the timing on the detonation of the plastique was too narrow to venture any attempt at preserving the Thrush's life. She and Jack had to go right now.

Opening the door, she manhandled Jack as quickly as she could toward the private elevator. Luck smiled on her again as no Thrush muscle crossed their path. Once in the alcove, Natasha settled Jack in a crouch in the far corner, leaned over to protectively cover his body, and started the countdown in her head. The rumble that sounded almost precisely at her own mental destination of "zero" was louder that she would have expected, the composition of the safety box seemingly amplifying the noise. Yet the distinct shattering of glass satisfyingly bespoke the destruction of the lucisorqe store.

Natasha used the password to open the elevator doors, shoved Jack inside over the body of the dead Thrush and then kicked the body outside into the alcove after entering the lift herself. She tore off the jumpsuit and threw it over the body of the guard. Then she punched the button with an L label, hoping that would gain her returned access to the main lab level closet.

The elevator shook as a secondary blast rattled the building, undoubtedly from flashpoint-ignited chemicals in the lab. Screeching to an abrupt halt, the doors opened with the car somewhat below floor level. Natasha hopped up out of the elevator and resettled her skirt. She yanked at Jack's upper arms. He stumbled out, hitting the raised level of the floor and landing flat on his stomach. Natasha pulled him up, grunting at the near dead weight. Thinking fast, she snatched a lab coat off one of the closet clothes racks and pulled the sleeves over Jack's arms, taking the time to button the garment in order to hide his naked torso.

Fire sirens were sounding throughout the building. She once more grabbed Jack about the waist, hastily threw one of his arms over her shoulders and headed the same way as the crowd exiting via an emergency stairwell. As they finally made their way out into the lobby, she called to one of the scrambling paramedics on the scene, "This man's been hurt!" They were hustled into a waiting ambulance, and it was only when she had Jack safely inside the emergency vehicle that Natasha displayed her U.N.C.L.E. ID.

"This man is an U.N.C.L.E. agent and needs to be taken where I tell you, pronto," she informed the ambulance team.

"Lady, he needs medical attention and a hospital stay," one of the paramedics protested.

"Just do as I say!" Natasha barked out.

The other paramedic of the team got on the cell phone to the dispatcher, explaining the situation.

"Patient's name?" the dispatcher questioned.

"Jack Valdar," provided Natasha shortly.

There were a few moments of silence and then the dispatcher came back with the authorized response, "Take him wherever the other agent directs."

Natasha exhaled a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding. She gave the paramedics an address and it was passed on to the ambulance driver. It was over. She had managed it after all. She had rescued her partner.

She leaned her head into her hands in exhaustion, an exhaustion that was as much emotional as physical. She had killed a man in cold blood. Another likely was dead due to an explosive charge she had set. Though she recognized with an agent's clarity there hadn't been much in the way of options at the time, that recognition didn't absolve her soul from responsibility for those deaths.

Natasha rubbed her eyes tiredly with the heels of her cradling palms. Her long braid fell forward over one of her shoulders and swept lightly over Jack's chest where he lay on the gurney. He reached out and grasped that rope of hair once more.

His glazed eyes cleared a little.

"Ha-ve to fo-cus ha-rd," Jack struggled out as not hearing his own words made it difficult for him to be sure of what he was saying. Natasha raised her face from her hands at the sound of his voice. "B-but can s-see you n-now," he reassured her.

"Better late than never," Natasha teased with a truly bright smile.

Responsibility for her partner was also something she recognized within her very soul, something from which she had stubbornly refused to be absolved. And in that her soul echoed that she had done well, more than well.

Jack sighed.

"Gr-een-s-tick," he stammered out as he finally closed his eyes and stopped fighting the descent into unconsciousness.

As temporary oblivion overtook his rattled senses, Jack kept Natasha's braid clutched tightly within his closed fist.

* * *

Six hours after Jack Valdar was wheeled into medical in NY HQ, the U.N.C.L.E. simultaneous raids on the various final tracked locations of the arms-loaded trucks commenced. Though those locations were not as widely dispersed across the Northeastern states as originally hoped, the attacks were nonetheless crippling blows to Thrush operations within the NY tri-state, metro DC and greater Philadelphia areas. Coupled with the officially unexplained explosion in his foundation's Manhattan headquarters that had destroyed Thrush's precious supply of lucisorqe, such was surely enough to put Niles Ospreye in the hot-seat on more than one front. And that was indeed an additional boon to U.N.C.L.E.

As for Jack himself, he lingered in unconsciousness, awakening only for brief and incoherent intervals during the first ten-hour span of his stay in the medical section. After his wounds had been cleaned, stitched and bandaged, the doctors analyzed his blood and found the heavy and somewhat surprising dosage of lucisorqe. There was no record of lucisorqe ever having entered the human bloodstream before, and the physicians were all at a loss.

Agent Kuryakin, with professional meticulousness, detailed the strange state in which she had found Agent Valdar, his seeming sensory disconnection and bewildering behavior. She also mentioned the fact the room in which the man had been held prisoner was scarce on oxygen. But she couldn't tell them what exactly had been done to Jack. Only he could tell them that, and he was having a difficult time even regaining consciousness, much less lucidity.

Natasha stayed in her partner's room in the infirmary as much as the doctors and nurses would permit her. Her face was gaunt and haunted. Both Napoleon and Illya recognized the look and knew there was more behind it than just Jack's iffy physical situation. Thus, as soon as he could convince her to take a brief respite from her continual preoccupation with keeping to Jack's bedside, Illya took his daughter privately aside.

He steered her into one of the small doctors' lounges, one that he first insured was completely devoid of other personnel. Then he implemented the security lock on the pneumatic door and guided her down onto one of the sofas.

"Tell me," Illya gently instructed his daughter as he seated himself beside her.

"There's nothing more to tell," she attempted to dismiss his concern. "I've reported to my best recollection everything on the incident."

"Yes, you reported all the facts like an extremely capable enforcement agent," Illya agreed. "Now tell me, like the person I know you to be, the feelings that go beyond the facts."

She bit her lip.

"What they did to Jack…" she began.

"Yes, I know you are concerned about your partner, and angry at what happened. And scared he won't recover or at least recover fully," her father enumerated the most-near-the-surface preoccupations that were pulling her emotionally apart at the moment. "But I also know that is not all of it, so tell me the rest."

Natasha wanted to tell him, to confide in him as she had when something had upset her as a little girl. But she wasn't a little girl anymore. And she had to face this on her own, didn't she? Didn't every enforcement agent have to come to terms with this?

"Nothing," she repeated, stubbornly setting her chin. "Collateral damage, that's all."

Illya placed his hand comfortingly over one of hers that lay limp in her lap. "That's all?" he queried pointedly.

Natasha's shaky resolve broke.

"I shot a man right between the eyes. I didn't even wait for him to do more than turn to me with his weapon out. I had no idea if he intended to do any more than hold me at bay with that gun. I didn't hesitate long enough to find out. And another man I left only half-conscious in a room I had rigged to blow up. I have no idea if he made it out alive."

"And that is a hard reality to live with," Illya said in a very quiet tone. "I do understand."

"How do I live with it?" Natasha inquired desperately. "I mean, does it get any easier…"

Her voice trailed off and she dropped her chin to hide her countenance from his sight, uncertain if she should be embarrassed by such an unprofessional outburst.

Illya placed a finger under her chin, raising her gaze to his once more. With a finger of his other hand he gently wiped away a single tear the clung to the corner of her eye.

"Moyo novoye serdce, listen carefully to what I say," he counseled her. "The day it becomes any easier is the day you become of more value to Thrush than to U.N.C.L.E."

Natasha blinked away her unshed tears, setting her eyes steadily on those of her father. She saw for truly the first time the sadness behind those eyes. He dealt with his own demons, his own ghosts of "collateral damage". Strange she had never recognized this before. But then to her he had always been more superhero than mere mortal.

"Do you understand, Natasha?" Illya asked her soothingly, wanting to know she could calm this turmoil in her soul but that she would as well never let that turmoil completely abate into callous nothingness.

She nodded mutely.

Then Natasha leaned forward and laid her head on his shoulder. Illya encircled her in his arms as he had done when she was small and hurting, whether from a scraped knee or a scraped heart.

"I can't make this hurt go away, my precious one," he cooed softly in her ear, "but know I will always be here to listen when that hurt becomes too painful to bear alone."

"I love you, Daddy," she let a name for him she hadn't used since she had become 'all grown up' at eleven convey all her heartfelt appreciation.

* * *

Niles Ospreye stood in his private suite behind his penthouse office in his Foundation's Manhattan headquarters. Fortunately there had been no damage up this high in the building. In fact the damage to the main of the structure was minor, though the lab levels, both the public and private ones, were in bad shape. Particularly the lower Thrush lab facilities were completely unusable and Niles considered them non-salvageable. It was not that they couldn't be repaired; it was just he saw no point in repairing them. Thrush could certainly not go back to using them as securely as they had before. He had convinced the NYC fire department the explosion had occurred in a backup generator system and had used all his personal clout to make sure there was no further investigation. But in future an actual backup generator system for the public lab level would be all that lowest level did indeed house.

Still, the state of his building and even of the Thrush labs within that building were but insignificant concerns to him at the moment. Much more significant was the fact U.N.C.L.E. had managed to successfully attack a plethora of small satrapies in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia. They had also taken out a significant Thrush armory near the Delaware Water Gap. The only thing all the locations had in common is the fact they had just received a supply of arms from the Russian Mafia. Thus somehow those weapons themselves had provided targets for U.N.C.L.E. to track. And that spelled a major miscue in the handling of the entirety of that particular arms shipment.

Most significant of all, the blast in the Thrush labs within this building had resulted in the destruction of the entire consignment of lucisorqe that, concealed with such care in a gun oil base, had accompanied the weapons from Moscow. The loss of the lucisorqe was the hardest blow of all. Replacing it would be all but impossible. The "black market pipeline" the Bratva had used to obtain the loss store was now a closed source because of the more stringent Finnish governmental regulations surrounding the rare mineral. And without an on-hand supply of that mineral, construction of more light manipulation suits would have to be halted indefinitely.

Niles rubbed the palm of one hand across his forehead. He had a pounding headache. The other members of the Supreme Council were circling shark-like around him, scenting blood in the waters of Thrush's power base. Every one of them was ready to take a final bite at Niles and drown him completely, and in so doing claim Ospreye's place in the pond as a tributary of his/her own. At the moment Niles could only battle their aggressive harassment with the sharp teeth of deceptive bravura and the promise of what Delphina could bring back from U.N.C.L.E.

When he had sent his prized mistress into the heart of U.N.C.L.E.'s secure refuge, Niles had never dreamt that it might be her unique abilities and possible accomplishment through those abilities that would insure his own personal position within Thrush. The bare framework of a plan of action with which Delphina had walked into enemy territory was now all that stood between him and possible extermination by his own organization. Suddenly the tables had turned between them. After all the years of him providing her safeguard against those highly-placed within Thrush who had wanted her – as the physical embodiment of a pointless, expensive and potentially incriminating twist of research – permanently put out of the way, now it was she who needed to shield him from the callous clutches of the organization's elite.

Niles' thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

He seldom entertained guests in this suite. In truth he seldom used this suite at all. It was simply a convenience he had provided himself for quick showers and clothes changes when he needed to attend some function or other after spending a full day at the office. But he knew who the knocker was. He had sent for the man, asked him specifically to come here.

Niles positioned himself in a preset location within the room before bidding "welcome" to his visitor.

"Come in, David."

Islenleque opened the door from Ospreye's executive office into the private suite with his weapon drawn. He didn't wait for one word to be spoken. He fired instantaneously and Niles fell to the carpeted floor. Behind Ospreye three shots, simultaneous yet each from a different direction, blasted through the interior of the room. Islenleque never had time to so much as gurgle a death gasp as one bullet perforated his heart, another his neck and the third his forehead.

With a groan, Niles rolled onto his side and then levered himself up into a sitting position.

"Of course David would aim for the head," he complained as he took a handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit coat and dabbed at blood flowing from the graze to the temple he had sustained in dodging David's shot. "I knew wearing a bulletproof vest was not worth the effort."

"That was a bit too close for comfort," one of the three snipers Niles had stationed about the room came over and knelt beside his superior. He took the handkerchief from Niles' hand and examined with both his eyes and his fingertips the surface wound to Ospreye's temple.

Niles shrugged. "Swimming with sharks requires the stamina to survive a bite or two."

The Thrush sniper said nothing in response. Until Central decreed otherwise, Ospreye was a Supreme Council member, requiring full protection by lesser members of the organization. Yet if Central did decree otherwise, he would be just as quick to put a bullet in Ospreye as he had in Islenleque. Islenleque had made one mistake too many for Thrush's liking; it was entirely possible Ospreye had too, but that wasn't completely decided at the moment. So the ordinary Thrushman stuck to his current duty.

The high-pitched resonance of a woman's scream caught the attention of all those within the suite. Their eyes gravitated as one to the source of the sound, to the open door between this interior suite and Ospreye's exterior office.

Behind David's bullet-riddled body stood Niles' personal assistant Celeste. She had come back unexpectedly to collect some classified files before the insurance adjusters came in tomorrow to assess the fire damage to the building. Clutching those files instinctively to her chest, her fear-dilated eyes stared into the suite beyond, right into the eyes of her employer where he still sat on the floor. Her mouth opened to form some question, but she never got the chance to ask it. Niles grasped the gun out of the hand of the sniper kneeling beside him and discharged a single slug precisely into the carotid artery of her neck. Blood bubbled from her lips as she slid to the floor, forever silent in death.

Niles shuddered slightly. He had liked Celeste. She had worked efficiently and loyally within his public world for over a dozen years. But things were what they were, and unfortunately she had crossed the line between his two worlds. Thus was she now nothing more than collateral damage in that private world of his.

"Clean up the mess," Niles casually ordered the three Thrush subordinates in the room as he rose steadily to his feet.

Niles Ospreye always had been and was still keenly aware of how to survive when swimming with sharks.

* * *

"How is Natasha doing?" asked Napoleon immediately upon Illya's entrance into his office.

"Coming to terms with the reality of collateral damage," Illya replied as he took his usual seat.

"The first time is always the worst."

"Does it ever really get any better, Napoleon?"

Napoleon felt himself pinned by his friend's unwavering gaze. No one knew better than Illya how he had so often glossed a thick veneer of acceptance of the inevitable over his own soft heart. No one knew better than Illya how often that veneer had cracked, leaving him vulnerable to outwardly suppressed bouts of guilt he tried to burn away with "sham romance" buried within the flash fires of casual sexual liaisons.

"No," Solo admitted monosyllabically.

Illya had always had his own way of dealing with the reality of collateral damage. Guilt wasn't so much part of it for him, but mentally conceding the unnecessary cruelty of the world at large – whether one fought on the side of the angels or the demons – was. That had left him more the pessimist than the optimist, more the pragmatist than the idealist. In some ways he envied his friend his more emotional connection to life as a whole and humanity in particular; in other ways he was intensely grateful his heart had always remained less involved than his head in such matters.

Both men were quiet for a long moment. It was Napoleon who finally pushed past the piercing thorn of the initial topic to move on toward one more presently pressing.

"The doctors and lab personnel are doing the best they can with analyzing Jack's blood and physical condition, but their best may not be good enough. If they are to restore Jack's sensory coordination to normal before some failsafe point has been overreached, they need information that they may not have enough time to personally gather. Information about exactly what lucisorqe can do to the human nervous system and how it does it."

"He is still flitting in and out of consciousness?"

"Yes, and much too confused to get across verbally what he wants to, though he keeps trying whenever he is awake."

"If there is no time to wait on the results of current experimentation," asserted Illya readily, "we need to seek out a source of previous experimentation who can tell us what we need to know."

"Exactly," agreed Napoleon. "And the only such source available to us at the moment…"

"Is Delphina Reikedahl," Illya completed his friend's statement.

"I don't think she'll cooperate willingly," Napoleon had to admit. "So – as much as I hate to even suggest this – we will need to use truth serum on her again."

Trapped by his unapproved attempt to assure control of Delphina, Illya had never expected the situation to turn out exactly like this. He knew how very reluctant Napoleon was to subject the woman to another dose of truth drug. Yet here was his friend himself suggesting this avenue of getting straight facts from her at a time when Illya couldn't oblige because Delphina was still sedated. The soporific had affected the Thrush technological residual more strongly than even Illya had anticipated. Some twelve hours and she was still out cold.

With a sigh, Illya set about making his confession.

"I had her thoroughly tranquilized, Napoleon."

Napoleon blinked. "You what?"

"I had Dr. Everson inject her with a knockout drug."

"Why?"

"To guarantee she did not have a chance to somehow advise Thrush of our plan to attack the satrapies via the tracked weapons."

"How in the hell did you think she could do that from inside one of our security cells?"

"How in the hell did she find her way through the fifth entrance into headquarters? How in the hell did she avoid detection by the bio-drone of her bio-magnetic field? How in the hell did she make you feel the physical effects of the truth serum we used on her when there was no physical contact between you at the time?" demanded Illya in angry frustration. "She seems rather talented at accomplishing the presumed impossible."

Now it was Napoleon who sighed. "I suppose Dr. Everson would say it is too soon after the use of a sleep-inducing narcotic to safely submit her to the barbiturate influence of U.N.C.L.E.'s truth serum, and I'd have to agree with such a medical assessment. I guess we'll just have to try to get her to talk without the aid of a sodium thiopental solution."

Illya fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. "It's a bit more complicated than that."

Napoleon eyed his friend suspiciously. "In what way more complicated?"

"She is still asleep."

"We'll wake her up."

"I mean she is… She is still out for the count, Napoleon. Dr. Everson hasn't had any success in rousing her."

"Illya," said Napoleon in a very tight voice, "you understood her reaction to drugs can be extreme. Any amount of the narcotic Dr. Everson judged safe to administer, you should have insisted be halved."

"I wanted her neutralized as a threat, Napoleon," retorted Illya sharply. "If that meant keeping her out for twenty-four or thirty-six or even forty-eight hours, that was fine by me. What happened to Jack Valdar was not part of the original equation. I had no way of predicting we would need to interrogate her in such cause."

What went unspoken between them was the plain truth Illya had wanted Delphina neutralized as a personal threat to Napoleon himself as much as neutralized as a general threat to U.N.C.L.E. as a whole. Thus Napoleon knew he couldn't further badger his friend on this. To do so would be not only ungenerous but disingenuous as well. Illya had simply been watching his back as he always did. That Napoleon did not agree with this particular method of doing so was beside the point. He still had to acknowledge that Illya had done only what he thought best for both his partner as well as for U.N.C.L.E.

"No sense crying over spilled milk," Solo concluded with more sanguinity than he actually felt. "But there remains the problem of finding out more about the effects of lucisorqe in order to provide Jack with the best chance of full recovery."

"A stimulant can be used to bring her around," suggested Illya.

Napoleon didn't like that idea, but it seemed the only option at the moment.

"All right, Illya, I'll consent to that, if it's done in as progressive a series of stepped stages as we can afford with our current time constraints."

Illya nodded shortly. "I am really not trying to kill her off, Napoleon."

Napoleon smirked. "I know that, tovarisch. And I know a good offense is often the best defense. It's just your take on that old adage can get a little heavy-handed at times."

"Russian thoroughness."

"Or pigheadedness."

Illya bit back the return zinger that automatically rose to his lips. He deserved his friend's verbal cuff… this time.

"Perhaps she'd be more accommodating about providing the data we need," Napoleon ruminated on possible tacks to get Delphina into a compliant mood, "if I talk to her alone."

"As second-in-command of the North American division of U.N.C.L.E., I cannot consent to any unguarded private meeting between yourself and Ms. Reikedahl," Illya rejected this idea with proper official protocol. "She has used the connection between you to her advantage before, Napoleon, and I doubt not she would do so again. The sensory lock you have to her makes you an illogical choice to be her interrogator."

Napoleon had to concede this. But then again, if she could use the connection between them to her advantage, couldn't he use it to his as well? She had admitted to him she had less control over that connection than she had imagined she would, especially when they came into physical contact.

"I know a way truth serum can still play into this scenario."

Illya warily eyed his friend, at first unsure what he was thinking. Then the nature of Napoleon's brainstorm impacted his consciousness with dramatic force.

"Napoleon, no."

"Yes, Illya. It's the best way. It should work without physically jeopardizing her and will likely put her mentally off-balance as well. That should break her controlled concentration."

"It's too dangerous."

"It's a calculated risk, and one I'm willing to take."

Illya let out an exasperated breath. He really couldn't object to this too strongly. Not after the calculated risk he had himself taken with regard to Delphina. Yet this was different. This was Napoleon betting possibly his own physical and emotional health on one reckless throw of potentially loaded dice.

"I know I will not be able to talk you out of this," Illya said unhappily as he took in the sheer determination evidenced in the other man's facial expression and bodily posture. Napoleon didn't bother to comment as Illya had already correctly gauged the firmness of his resolve. "Yet if you insist on doing this, Napoleon, I do have a few provisos to which I would appreciate your agreement both professionally as an administrative head of U.N.C.L.E. and personally as a friend."

For a moment Napoleon mulishly jutted out his chin in ready defiance. Then he relaxed his inner obstinacy and accepted that Illya was completely justified in asking for some concessions on his part. After all, his partner only had the best interests of both himself and the organization at heart.

"What provisos?"

"When you do this, I serve as interrogator."

"Agreed." Napoleon had fully expected that one.

"A full security detail must be in attendance for the entirety of the interrogation. No stolen unguarded moments."

"Agreed," Napoleon gave more reluctant assent.

"I assume you will want Dr. Everson continually monitoring the Thrush for any signs of physical distress during the process, but I want Dr. Gremier continually monitoring you in the same way."

"Agreed," Napoleon went along somewhat begrudgingly. Gremier was much too cautious for his liking. The man was even more of a medical curmudgeon than Schulman, but Napoleon knew Illya would not budge on this particular.

"And if Gremier says stop, you stop, Napoleon. No pulling rank and plowing ahead against medical recommendation."

"You're a tough negotiator, Kuryakin," remarked Napoleon through tightened lips.

"I want your agreement to that last proviso, Napoleon," Illya doggedly persisted.

"All right."

"Tell me you agree," pressed Illya.

"I agree," verbally surrendered Napoleon.

Illya released a short huff of breath. Since Napoleon was going forward with this, he had at least parleyed as good a position as possible, taking into consideration Solo's intractable independent streak, for keeping it all under tightly supervised control.

Illya stood. "I will arrange with Dr. Everson for the paced stimulant injections for Ms. Reikedahl."

Napoleon nodded.

"Illya," Napoleon's voice stopped the other man just before he exited the office through the pneumatic door. "My gut is telling me it's time to throw that switch."

The Number 1 in Section III turned briefly to the Number 1 in Section I and nodded his acquiescence to his superior's order before making his departure into the main upper-level corridor of the North American headquarters for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

* * *

It was as if she was floating between two separate layers of consciousness. On one level Delphina was absolutely aware that she was asleep; on the other level her dream encompassing a past memory was as vivid as current reality…

_Having failed to find her father in his home, she had gone looking for him in his lab. There he was perched on a stool before a counter, writing notes on some experiments. He looked tired, had looked so for weeks. She was worried about him and wished he would stop these late-night work sessions. After all, he was not a young man anymore._

_"Papa," she addressed him quietly, so not to startle him, "it's after nine. Have you at least eaten supper?"_

_She spoke in Norwegian. When it was just the two of them in conversation, they always spoke in their native tongue._

_"Delphie," he acknowledged her with a smile, though the gauntness of his face made his daughter bite her lip in consternation, "always glad to see you, my girl!" Then he gazed at her appraisingly, taking in her pale honey-brown tresses. "You've dyed your hair," he observed._

_She nodded. "Niles had a concoction made that even works on my genetically deficient locks, as long as I am content with a muted shade of color, that is."_

_"I thought Niles liked your hair the way it was."_

_"Albino white you mean?" she remarked nonchalantly. Then she shrugged. "Myself, I find it less appealing now that I am closing in on forty."_

_Her father blinked in surprise. "Are you really?"_

_"In not too many more years," she admitted with a sigh. "But you haven't answered my question," she reminded him pointedly._

_"Question?" he asked with a raised eyebrow._

_Sometimes now his mental focus wandered, forcing her to speculate that he was, albeit gently, slipping away from living. Inwardly centering on preparing his soul, as the religious would explain it._

_"Oh, about dinner," his mind recaptured her query. "No, I wasn't hungry."_

_"You need to take better care of yourself, Papa," she scolded him with tenderness plainly evident in her voice._

_She didn't like to think what her world would be like without him. She didn't remember the mother who had died shortly after her own birth. All her life there had always been only one surety: her father. And perhaps soon that would be taken away from her._

_"Won't you let me fix you some soup?"_

_"I don't want anything, Delphie," he responded somewhat brusquely. She knew how he hated being 'mother-henned'. "I really don't."_

_"Tea at least?" she pressed._

_He glared at her in frustration but then, perhaps seeing the concern so visibly etched on her features, he relented. "Tea would be welcome."_

_She gave him a fond smile. "Strong and sweet?" she inquired._

_"Strong and sweet," he agreed. "Just like you," he added with a fond smile of his own._

_She set off to the small kitchenette behind a closed door at the back of the lab, briefly pressing loving fingers upon his shoulder as she passed him._

_Returning a few minutes later with a mug of black-pekoe brew in either hand, she noticed her father had returned studiously to his note making._

_"What are all those jottings about?" she asked casually as she handed him his cup of tea and then wrapped both hands around her own mug so to fully enjoy the warmth that transferred through the ceramic to her fingers._

_"You," answered her father candidly._

_She smirked. "Why am I not surprised?"_

_"You are my life's work, Delphie," he stated earnestly before taking a large sip of the hot liquid in his mug. "Yet that ability you revealed yesterday," he continued after swallowing, "is something even I would never have predicted."_

_She shifted uncomfortably. "I just—"_

_"You just were flexing your mental centering and happened to come across a way to match your bio-magnetic profile to mine," he interrupted her. "Do you realize how unique a gift that is, Delphie? How potentially powerful a skill?"_

_"Papa, it's a useless skill, just like all the others I have."_

_Her father resolutely shook his head. "None of your special skills are useless; they have just gone as of yet unused."_

_"And I suspect always will," she finalized certainly._

_Again her parent shook his head. "No, no, no, it will not be so. Someday you will encounter Napoleon Solo close at hand, and then—"_

_"And then I will connect to his sensory synaptic pathways and he to mine," now it was she who interrupted, "and the biologic technology of your scientific theories will be verified in full. I know, Papa."_

_And now it was her father who sighed._

_"Perhaps I have allowed myself to make too many decisions in your life, Delphie," he granted with real regret. "But I wanted… Well, never mind what I wanted. The time for choices is long past. We are part of Thrush, and you need protection from—"_

_"Niles protects me," she reminded him quickly._

_He cocked his head to one side, studying her silently for a long moment._

_"Delphie, if that were not so," he ventured, "would you stay with him?"_

_"I don't understand," she declared in some confusion._

_"If you did not need his protection," specified her parent, "would you stay with Niles?"_

_"Are you asking if I love him?"_

_"Yes, I suppose I am."_

_She considered that. "Perhaps," was all the answer she found inside herself to give._

_"But then again perhaps not," her father expanded her answer._

_She stared at him, uncertain how to react._

_"Does it matter?" she finally demanded to be told._

_"Perhaps," her father turned her former answer back on her._

_She smirked. "But then again perhaps not," she repeated back his._

_Her father's gaze held hers._

_"Solo could be your protection, Delphie," he forwarded bluntly and rather unexpectedly. "A completely independent means of protection, a means entirely yours and thus separate from any I ever did or Niles currently does bestow on you."_

_"What?" came her startled response._

_Her father shrugged._

_"If in the end your skills with regard to him are proven useful," he expounded, "you would be in a unique position within Thrush. It is doubtful the Supreme Council would ever terminate any possible tool usable against the head of U.N.C.L.E. You would be safe."_

_"Assuming those skills could indeed prove useful and that they indeed work as intended."_

_"The sensory connection will work as intended," insisted her father._

_She shrugged. "We cannot test it."_

_"Proof will lie solely in the first execution. No allowance for testing."_

_"And no fallback for failure," concluded his daughter._

_"There will be no failure," he concluded obstinately in his turn._

_She looked over at the frail man sitting on that stool. What was in her, what had been transformed in her by medical means – often painful and causing surprising side effects – was indeed his life's work. An impractical dream he had needed to redefine within the boundaries of practical reality. Now in his old age he simply could not conceive of it all having been for nothing. And honestly neither could she._

_"And now," her father furthered confidently, "you have as well this other unanticipated skill, this ability to match another's bio-magnetic profile. I have not a clue how you managed that, Delphie. I'm not Solo, so your sensory synapses aren't connected to mine. Nor to the lab assistants with whom we have been purposely repeating the experiment since that initial accidental discovery."_

_"I just concentrate," she provided all she knew of the specifics on the matter._

_"The exercises in concentration I insisted during all these long years that you practice over and over again I thought of only as a means to insure, once you do interconnect with Solo, that you don't drown in the added input of his sensory responses. That you could pull back if needed and control the process. I never foresaw this other result, but it is a result that will make you even more valuable to Thrush."_

_"Should they ever find a reason to use that result," she declared skeptically._

_"They will find a reason."_

_She glanced at him once more. She wasn't sure whether he was pleased with the idea of Thrush finding a reason to use her skills in some pursuit, or simply resigned to that probability. And honestly she was not sure how she felt about that probability herself._

_"Papa," she found herself venturing in an introspective voice after a minute or two had passed in silence between them, "what will it feel like? Connecting sensory synapses with Solo?"_

_Her father turned the fullness of his attention to her._

_She had never before asked him such a question. In fact she never asked any questions pertaining to all this experimental science to which she had been subjected. She had always simply trusted. But now knowing the answer to this particular question was extremely important to her, important enough that she had at last asked._

_Her father's eyes clouded momentarily, as if full focus was escaping him once more. But then his eyes cleared as he replied with what she recognized immediately as complete and painful honesty._

_"I don't know."…_

Delphina felt herself drifting away from the second layer of consciousness, drifting away from her memories.

"Sterk og god, pappa," she spoke softly in her native tongue to the fast-fading shadows of the past as salt-laden tears slipped beneath the lashes of her closed eyes. "Den føles sterk og god."  
{Translation: Strong and sweet, Papa. It feels strong and sweet.}

"Delphina, time to wake up," a voice broke through her first level of consciousness. A friendly voice, a voice that did not startle but rather soothed her toward alertness. "I need you to wake up now," the voice spoke again, its tone strong in the forwarding of command yet sweet in the gentle manner of the telling.

Delphina's eyes popped open. For some seconds her surroundings completely disoriented her. Where was she? What was she doing here? The last she recalled she had been on the bed in her cell, drifting into a sedated sleep. And now she was…

In a room in U.N.C.L.E. medical she assumed, though there was no bed in this room. Instead she was seated in a cushioned chair with the back somewhat reclined. Her wrists were strapped to the arms of the chair with padded restraints; her torso reined in place by yet another belt positioned across her ribs. An IV ran into a vein in one of her arms. A monitor beeped quietly in matched rhythm with her own heartbeat. She felt the gel-coated coldness of the cardiac patches beneath the fabric of her prisoner jumpsuit, just as she was aware of the heaviness on the index finger of her right hand where a device was fitted to keep track of her blood pressure.

"What am I doing here?" she asked wearily of no one in particular since she was as yet unsure who was in that room with her, though she was fairly certain the voice that had roused her to consciousness was that of Napoleon Solo. "Why are you keeping tabs on my physical condition?"

"To answer your second question first," responded Napoleon, making positive her previous perception of the owner of the awakening voice, "because we want to make sure you don't suffer any ill effects from any of this."

"To answer your first question," noted the harder voice of Illya Kuryakin as Delphina's chair was raised to a full upright position by a med tech, "because you are the only source for the information we seek who is available to us at present."

Delphina was now able to see that Napoleon sat in a chair opposite her own, its position very close to hers. He wore no suit coat and was likewise attached to heart and blood pressure monitors. His body wasn't restrained, however.

"What sort of information?" she asked warily as she watched one of the medical staff remove the IV from her arm. At the same time she took note, via her peripheral vision, of the security personnel stationed around her.

"Information I doubt you will willingly provide," bluntly asserted Illya.

"Delphina," forwarded Napoleon in a tone much gentler than that his partner was currently using with her, "during a covert operation Jack Valdar was captured by Thrush and submitted to…"

Napoleon hesitated, uncertain how to word this.

"To a form of torture with which we have been up to this time unfamiliar," Illya stated.

Delphina stared at him. "What has this to do with me? Don't all of your agents go into the field knowing torture is more than a possibility when captured?"

"We have him back, Delphina," Napoleon told her. "Yet we don't know enough about what happened to him to appropriately treat him."

Delphina shrugged. "Perhaps there simply is no treatment. But whether there is or not, what could I tell you in such regard? I have no medical background."

"You have a vast background as a guinea pig for Thrush," Illya made his point in a less-than-friendly tone, playing the 'bad cop' role to the hilt. "Since, from what we can gather, your lover's right-hand man was the instigator in this case, we're betting you have at least some knowledge of this particular experiment."

Delphina's face hardened. "If you're expecting me to betray Niles, I won't."

"We're not even sure Ospreye is directly involved," Napoleon tried to smooth over the emotional bristling Illya's direct speech had produced in the Thrush. "All we know is that Jack is in a bad way and there may not be time for our medical personnel to find the best means to aid him."

"And why should that matter to me?" she demanded, her tone less hostile than one might expect.

"It is useless to try and reason with her, Napoleon," Illya said with frustration evident in his tone. "All Thrush are heartless killers, even mere 'technological residuals'."

Delphina snapped her head around in Kuryakin's direction, her hazel-brown eyes gold-bright with anger.

"I have never killed anyone in my life," she enunciated each word with precise sharpness.

"But you have watched those of your 'intimate acquaintance' kill many and done nothing," countered Illya.

Delphina set her chin stubbornly. "I am how I am."

"Or how you were made," remarked Napoleon softly.

The prisoner's gaze once more sought that of the chief among her captors. "I don't know what you want from me," she spoke uncertainly.

"While in Thrush hands Jack received, it seems, a rather peculiar massage," Napoleon took advantage of the vulnerability he recognized in her in that moment. "A massage using gun oil infused with lucisorqe."

The complexion of the Thrush technological residual visibly paled, leaving little doubt she knew what this implied.

"I can't help you," she declared steadfastly.

"You can and you will," Illya declared just as steadfastly.

Kuryakin gave a nod to a doctor in the room and the man lifted a syringe off a table. He raised the filled needle to eye level and carefully ejected a small amount of liquid from the tip, checking the contents for air bubbles.

"More truth serum, Mr. Kuryakin?" questioned Delphina with a lopsided half-grin. Between the sedative to make her sleep and then what she presumed in the removed IV line had been a stimulant to wake her up, her body would tolerate no more drugs. She would go immediately into convulsions and they would get nothing from her.

"Yes, truth serum, but administered rather differently this time," Illya informed her.

Then the doctor came forward and rolled up one of Solo's shirt sleeves, tying a rubber cord around his biceps, making clear the reason for the man's own physical monitoring.

Insight into what was about to happen next blasted into Delphina's consciousness. "No," she shouted somewhat hoarsely.

"It's all right, Delphina. I'll be fine, and you'll be fine, and we will learn what we need to learn," Napoleon attempted to reassure her as he smiled one of his purposefully blinding smiles.

"Oh please don't do this," she begged helplessly as the doctor searched out an appropriate vein in the underside of Napoleon's arm just beneath the elbow.

As she watched the needle plunged into Napoleon's flesh, saw the truth serum pushed into his bloodstream, her mind was dizzyingly assaulted by dozens of memories. She fondly reminisced on her father in his lab working so tirelessly on his great project with all his talk of personal worlds without boundaries, of shared sensations. She poignantly remembered the first time she had let her sensory synapses attach to those of Solo, the almost hypnotic power of that moment. And she blissfully recalled she and Napoleon dancing, hearing the music as one.

The connection they shared was never meant to be used as a weapon: either by her or by him. And yet that is what she had done when she had come into this place as she had, determined on finding out how that sensory union would feel and yet raising no objection to using what she found to ulterior purpose. Now here was Napoleon doing much the same thing, and all she could think was how wrong this all was.

"Dette er feil," she spoke quietly, though control of this situation had already passed away from her as Solo leaned in toward her and reached out to grasp both her hands firmly within his own.  
{Translation: This is wrong.}

* * *

"Well played, Illya," Napoleon complimented his friend on the concluded interrogation as the two of them sat in his office now watching Delphina on a private view screen.

The Thrush was still in the specially fitted room within the infirmary, still strapped in the same chair, though it had once again been placed in a somewhat reclined position. Several medical people remained for the moment in that room with her, as did one lone security guard. Delphina was quiet, one could say subdued, her facial expression distant and unreadable.

"She told us more than I ever imagined she would," acknowledged Illya.

"What we did threw her for a mental loop," noted Napoleon. "She could at least make an attempt at controlling her own body's reactions to the drug. She didn't have that option with mine."

Despite the success of the gambit, Illya frowned his continued disapproval. "It was still too big a risk."

"Gremier said I was fine," Napoleon reminded the other man perhaps more snappishly than he had intended.

"Gremier said he was satisfied with your condition for the moment," corrected Illya. "He still wants you to undergo a complete medical evaluation when this is all over."

Napoleon sighed. "And I agreed to that, so what more do you want from me, Illya?"

"I want to know that you are more than physically all right. I want to know that you are not emotionally…

Illya broke off his sentence with a shake of his head, so Napoleon put into blunt words what his friend would not.

"That I am not emotionally compromised."

"Compromised isn't a word I would choose, Napoleon. I know your inner sense of moral responsibility always keeps you centered. But what happened in there… I know it affected you. Your eyes hide nothing from me, my friend, not after all these years."

Napoleon sighed yet again. "I'm not going to foolishly deny that. What would be the point? It's just she is so… broken, Illya. Physically, mentally, emotionally. She's like a shattered piece of pottery that was pieced back together all wrong."

"I would describe her more like a collection of Legos."

Napoleon couldn't help blinking in surprise. "What?"

"Legos, Napoleon. You know: those plastic building blocks you can snap together into a myriad of forms."

"I know what Legos are, Illya," spoke Napoleon with some irritation.

"Then you must understand my point. Her father took apart all her pieces and fitted them back together into an entirely different whole, a definitely unexpected whole."

"But he also modified those pieces at will."

"Yes, he did. Yet the whole he created with those modified pieces isn't broken, Napoleon. It just isn't what we've experienced before."

Napoleon disagreed, but he didn't press the matter. Illya wasn't the one whose sensory synapses were connected with that "unexpected whole". Thus he could never personally experience the sadly distorted creation Reikedahl had secreted inside the skin of his daughter.

"The med techs are leaving just as planned," Illya remarked, his eyes once more glued to the view screen and his mind once more on matters more currently pertinent. "Now to see if she realizes you misaligned the pins in the buckle on one of her wrist restraints while you were holding her hands during the interrogation session."

"She realized the moment I did it, Illya," Napoleon assured the other man. "It's just a question of whether she decides to take advantage of the opportunity."

"You think she might not?"

"I think she's scared and isolated and desperate; so I think she'll grab that opportunity within two tightly clenched fists."

"Then the plan should proceed without a hitch."

"_Oh, I suspect there might be a hitch or two," Napoleon's thought remained unverbalized. "Yet in the end I believe we'll all get what we want."_

* * *

Delphina observed the departure of the medical personnel, leaving her alone with just one guard. Napoleon had wedged off-center the pins to the buckle on her right wrist restraint. She would be able to release that restraint in mere seconds. She didn't know why he had done that – perhaps out of pity, perhaps with purposeful calculation – but she honestly didn't care why. If it was a trap, so be it. Everything was wrong and she simply couldn't stay here any longer. She had to get away.

She waited until the guard was close enough, and then she violently kicked out one leg and knocked the man to the floor. She ignored the pain brought on by the movement as she bodily forced the chair into an upright position. Before the guard could recover his feet, she had her right arm free and that hand descending to the back of the man's neck in a vicious karate chop. At least Niles would be pleased her defensive training with Thrush had not gone to waste.

She freed her other wrist and released the torso restraint, afterwards pulling off the finger monitor and the cardiac chest patches with unnecessary ferocity. She dashed through the only visible exit, knowing the window for escape would likely be narrow, and found herself unexpectedly within the sickroom of Jack Valdar.

The agent in the railed infirmary cot was unconscious, attached to a veritable battalion of machines, and receiving supplemental oxygen through a nasal cannula. They knew to do that now, to oxygenate his blood above normal levels until the lucisorqe had fully dissipated from his bloodstream. During the last interrogation she had explained the relationship between the mineral's effect on the brain's sensory synapses and deoxygenated blood. She had explained many things during that particularly stressful interrogation… too many.

Yet it wasn't those unguarded revelations that left her now so desperate to flee, but rather the nature of her connection with Solo. It was too powerful, too exhilarating: tempting with a euphoria akin to that achieved by the most addictive of drugs. Thus it could easily destroy the humanity in both of them. An odd truth, since it was that "sensory communion" her father had envisioned as a means of enhancing the humanity within interconnected beings. But such communion too readily became but another weapon in the human emotional arsenal. Thus she knew now she needed to separate herself from Solo once and for all, not only for her own sake but for his as well.

However, looking at Jack Valdar in that bed momentarily stilled her current frenetic panic to get herself away from here, away from Solo. When she had attempted to teach Valdar the process of mental centering, when she had smugly told him he would know when the time came to utilize that ability, she had never intended for that moment to be anything like this. She had only thought to selfishly exploit his latent talents to complete her own mission. She had, admittedly naively, never reckoned with her people using the unrecorded properties of lucisorqe as a method of torture. So perhaps she owed this man. Or perhaps she simply decided her selfish whim to discover the full parameters of her sensory bond with Solo had already resulted in enough collateral damage.

Biting her lip and refusing to listen to the frenzied voice in her head that was telling her to keep running and not look back, Delphina walked over to Jack's bed and pinched his arm hard. He murmured in his sleep. She pinched his arm again even harder.

"Come on, Mr. Valdar, you can sense that. It may be as the acrid scent of a burnt match or it may be as the sour taste of lemons, but you **do** sense it. So rouse yourself out of that safe burrow of exhausted unconsciousness and actively deal with your body's reactions!"

She pinched him again, leaving a definite bruise in the wake of her fingers. Jack gave a small moan. "Gray," he muttered softly as his eyes opened less than willingly.

"So I'm gray, am I?" she queried with a smirk. "I suppose that's appropriate. I guess I do fall somewhere between the pure white of total selfless virtue and the unadulterated black of complete selfish vice."

Jack squinted and sniffed.

"Tell your sensory perceptions how to work, Mr. Valdar. Demand that they perform as you want. I know you have some cognizance of reality. You can force your mind to focus; you always could. Now use what I showed you to push that focus as far as you can."

"Gr-ay," repeated Jack in confusion.

"I'm speaking words, not flashing colors, Mr. Valdar." She punctuated her remark by several more bruising pinches to his arm. "Concentrate!" she commanded in no uncertain terms.

She needed something to aid him in gaining that mental focus, a sensory task on which he could concentrate. On the bedside table stood a phone, one of the cordless variety. It wasn't the best tool for the purpose as it could register on only three – touch, sound and sight – of the five sensory levels. Something that could simultaneously engage all five levels would be ideal, but Delphina had to make do with what was readily at hand. As she reached for the phone her gaze fell upon something on the lower shelf of the bedside stand: the neatly folded distinctive material of the light manipulation suit.

She didn't speculate on why the suit had been left in such an unsecured location. Again she didn't care why. This was her ticket out of here and she was going to use it. She had some skills U.N.C.L.E. didn't fully comprehend even after the last harrowing interrogation session. There were just some questions even the efficient Illya Kuryakin hadn't known to ask.

She rolled the suit under one arm and pulled the phone off the table with her other hand. She pressed a pattern of numbers onto the phone's buttons, watching Jack tilt his head, sniffing and licking his lips, as she did so. Sliding down the nearest of the bed's side-rails, she shoved the phone into one of Jack's hands. Then she held the index finger of his opposite hand firmly between her own index finger and thumb and poked that index finger of his over the keys in the same pattern.

"Repeat." She guided his finger again over the keys. Jack instinctively resisted the pull of her hand.

"Repeat," she again demanded. She did this several more times in rapid succession until Jack's finger stopped struggling under hers and began to slowly work the pattern on its own.

"Faster!" she subsequently ordered as she manipulated his finger with her own more swiftly over the keys. Again she repeated this procedure several times in rapid succession until Jack's finger was flying unaided over the buttons.

Then she placed her fingers once more over his index finger and keyed in a different set of numbers. Jack's brow puckered. Sweat broke out over his skin as his brain attempted to properly catalogue all the sensory input assaulting his nervous system. After but three aided repetitions of the new pattern, Jack was slowly but independently punching in the appropriate numbers with one finger.

"No time for baby steps, Mr. Valdar," she gave voice to the urgency she privately felt about making her escape.

"Five," said Delphina as grabbed hold of Jack's index finger once more and pressed it firmly over the five button. "Five. Five. Five." She poked the key with Jack's finger as she voiced the word over and over. "Three," she then initiated, touching Jack's captured index finger over that button briefly. "Five, three," she ordered.

Jack, his brain beginning to sort through various sensations and place them in context, attempted to move his index finger to the three key. "Five, three," Delphina physically and verbally made known the pattern with staccato precision and then returned to holding Jack's index finger firmly in place over the five key.

Jack groaned in weary protest as Delphina persisted in holding fast his index finger and demanding, "Five, three."

_"Come on, Mr. Valdar," she mentally prompted. "You have more than one damn finger!"_

Jack took a deep breath and hesitantly placed his middle finger over the three key on the phone and depressed it lightly.

Delphina smiled, but spoke still in a sharp, staccato voice as she simultaneously guided Jack's index finger over the next pattern. "Five, three, nine." She resumed holding Jack's index finger securely suspended over the five key. Uncertainly, Jack's pressed the five key with his index finger, the three key with his middle finger, and reached toward the nine button with his ring finger, only glancing it at first and then making solid contact.

"Five, three, nine, zero," Delphina used the concurrent sound and touch method to elaborate the extended set of numbers.

The lines between Jack's eyes deepened in concentration. Her words and the distinctive tones of the pressed keys were coming to him alternately as bites of sound and flashes of color. The retraction of the buttons registered sometimes to his touch and sometimes to his taste buds. He was struggling to get everything into its respective place and he was more physically drained than he had ever been in his entire life. But at least now the input seemed to have some semblance of order he could interpret.

Jack stretched his thumb over to the zero button on the phone and sighed with satisfaction as the distinctive sound of the depressed key made its way into his synaptically muddled brain.

"Very good, Mr. Valdar," praised the impromptu teacher.

Her voice edged its way into the proper pathway of Jack's cerebral cortex. "Thrush," he stated directly to the point as he gazed at her through eyes presenting him a blurry and somewhat gyrating but definitely visual image.

"And that is my cue to make an exit," she stated with a crooked smile. "Good luck, Mr. Valdar."

With unmasked haste, Delphina unzipped, stripped away and tossed aside the telltale prisoner jumpsuit. She then drew the light manipulation suit fully over her naked form and vanished into obscurity.

Jack clumsily, and much too slowly for his own satisfaction, reached over and pushed the call button at his bedside. Several members of the medical staff, as well as a gun-at-the-ready Natasha Kuryakin, burst immediately into the room at this summons. The invisible Delphina slipped out through the pneumatic door to the corridor as the others entered.

"The Thrush was here," Jack told them a little bewilderedly, his tongue still awkward as his words were yet but sporadically transferring as sound to his brain.

Natasha looked into her partner's eyes, clear now though the flesh beneath was marked by the dark hollows of sheer exhaustion. "You saw her, Jack?" she questioned. "You truly saw her?"

"As well as I see you now," Jack stammered as he struggled to hear his own statement, "which I admit is somewhat hazily. Still I did **see** her. And I do **see** you, greenstick," he assured his partner somewhat mischievously as he observed her side-raise her skirt to slip her Special back into the usually concealed thigh holster.

"Jack, that's wonderful!" exclaimed Natasha as she let the teasing pass uncommented upon. "Thanks be to any heavenly power that exists or even to the non-heavenly power of a Thrush!" She came near the bed and impulsively hugged her partner.

"Don't you think you should report about the Thrush?" stuttered out Jack somewhat thickly, made as always more than a bit uncomfortable by her overtly tactile nature.

"Yes sir, Mr. Valdar," she conceded with a radiant smile. Then Natasha took out her communicator pen and clicked it into the appropriate mode and channel. "Bait taken and trap reset," she informed the Number 1 of Section I. "And Jack… Agent Valdar's senses seem to be normalizing," she quickly regained the verbal usage of proper protocol.

"We saw and heard, Agent Kuryakin," acknowledged Napoleon in likewise proper protocol. "Quite remarkable."

"Medical will need to set up a series of similar exercises for Mr. Valdar," Illya forwarded. "I'm sure he'll need the sensory reinforcement for a while yet."

"Yes, sir," accepted Jack a bit shakily. "Things aren't always staying firmly put at the moment." His words still sounded somewhat slurred and he was squinting hard in the attempt to keep the visual input of his surroundings in sensory context. "And the focusing to keep them where they should be is difficult… and physically taxing."

"But everything will relearn its place," enthused Natasha. "And your sensory reactions will become second nature again soon enough."

She entertained no doubt whatsoever regarding her partner's physical and mental resilience, and Jack found personal reassurance in that absolute confidence of hers.

"Are you gloating yet?" inquired Illya after Napoleon closed off the holographic communication with an authoritative "Solo out."

"Now why would I be gloating?" asked Napoleon a bit too smugly for the other man's comfort.

Illya scowled. "You said she'd help him and not just bolt when she found the suit."

"As Jack noticed, Illya, she's gray not black."

Illya sighed. "Everyone is some shade of gray to you, Napoleon. Don't think I haven't been made keenly aware of that over the years."

"Is that bad?" Napoleon couldn't resist taunting his friend.

Illya shook his head. "Not bad, just frustrating to the more pragmatic among us."

Napoleon smiled one of his most contented smiles. "I aim to please… my conscience, that is."

Illya just shook his head once more… though his own type of satisfied smile played upon his lips. For all his fussing and grousing, he truthfully wouldn't have his idealistic friend other than the way he was.

* * *

Klaxons were screaming a security alert as Delphina, invisible within the cocoon of the light manipulation suit, made her way through the hallway beyond the medical section of U.N.C.L.E.'s NY HQ. The insistent sound assaulting her ears was straining her nerves into a state of tense edginess. She wished she had thought to remove her earcuff before donning the light manipulation suit, but it was too late to remedy that now. She would need to detach the hood of the suit to get to the earcuff and she couldn't risk that.

She had no doubt U.N.C.L.E.'s bio-drone was the cause of her current inability to escape the attention of the alarm system. It was tracking her as unauthorized personnel, despite her invisibility. That damn system was ruining her getaway. And in that moment, irrationally but with all the intensity of sheer human emotion, she accounted the bio-drone as the reason for everything being so wrong now. That damn system Thrush coveted because it hindered the workability of that organization's own latest technological invention. That damn system that had provided the impetus for Niles sending her on her own foolish way into U.N.C.L.E. HQ. That damn system that somehow seemed to her at the moment as a malevolent alien force ready to destroy every surety she had ever had in her life, and she suddenly knew she damn well wasn't going to allow it to do that…

_Still ensconced in his office in the company of Illya, Napoleon's own ears were registering the klaxons through more than their own neural connection to his brain. He was hearing those sirens through Delphina's electronically augmented auditory perception as well. The persistent sound irritated his nerves similarly to how it was irritating Delphina's at this moment, and through that sensory irritation he became aware of her sudden anger as well…_

"Think you can beat my bio-magnetics, you silly set of silicon and wire and electricity?" Delphina found herself mentally chastising the 'mechanical entity' of the bio-drone. "Well, it's not possible because I can fool a machine as only a human can."

She moved close behind one of U.N.C.L.E.'s authorized personnel and then she concentrated and let her bio-magnetic profile match that of this total stranger. Now she was hidden to more than human eyes, she was hidden to the magnetic eyes of the bio-drone as well…

_Napoleon and Illya turned to one another as the audible alerts suddenly ceased._

_"What the hell?" Illya gave voice to his astonishment._

_"Another facet of Thrush's flawed technological diamond, I shouldn't wonder," responded Napoleon._

_"Diamond?" questioned Illya._

_"A diamond is the residual produced when carbon is exposed to high pressure. Well, human beings are carbon-based creatures, are we not? And I don't think any human being has ever been required to survive in a more high pressure atmosphere than Delphina."_

_Illya grunted his dissatisfaction with Napoleon's comparison. "All that glitters is not gold… or even flawed diamonds," he challenged his friend._

_"Then you do admit she does have some glitter?"_

_"As a human being? Or as a model of unrestrained technology?"_

_Napoleon didn't reply._

_"Perhaps she has already managed to get out of the building," suggested Illya._

_"She's still here," stated Napoleon certainly._

_Illya didn't ask why his partner was so certain of this. Honestly he knew why and he really didn't want to think more minutely on that particular prospect at the moment._

_"So where does the plan go from here?"_

_"Exactly where we expected it would. To the auxiliary bio-drone server room we so thoughtfully equipped on this level."_

_"And would you mind letting me in on how we intend to corral her in that direction, since we have no way of tracking where she is?"_

_"When seeking a diamond, even a flawed one, noticing glitter is essential."_

_Illya looked totally confused (as well as totally frustrated) as Napoleon opened a channel on his main communications panel._

_"Agent Kuryakin," came the ready response to the Chief's signal as a hologram of Natasha within Jack's infirmary room floated into view."_

_"Natasha, get yourself over to C corridor, Level 2. You are to join Agent Walters' Phase II team there."_

_"Yes sir. Agent Kuryakin out."_

_"You got that, Kyle?" Napoleon subsequently spoke to Agent Walters on the dual open channel._

_"Yes sir; will wait for additional team member at current location," Walters acknowledged. "But may I ask what we are to do then?"_

_"You take a walking tour of headquarters, Mr. Walters, and let Natasha point out the sights. Solo out."_

_Illya tilted his head speculatively at Napoleon. "You're counting on Natasha's exceptional peripheral vision, I take it?"_

_Napoleon smiled. "To catch sight of some telltale Thrush glitter."_

* * *

Delphina made her way through the halls of U.N.C.L.E. HQ by finding one after another of its authorized personnel with whom to stick close, and with whom to match bio-magnetic profiles. But this resulted in her wandering rather randomly through the maze of corridors and levels within the structure. And so far no one on whom she had focused had been leaving the building. She had been in several office corridors, abandoning any quarry as he or she entered a door to one of these inner precincts. She had been in one of the research lab corridors, in several conference room corridors and now the damn commissary! She felt like Alice in Wonderland lost down the rabbit hole and it was certainly not a pleasant experience.

To top it all off, the constant level of concentration needed to match her bio-magnetic profile to that of others was exhausting her. She didn't know how much longer she could manage to stay vigilant in keeping up that synchronization. Honestly she didn't know how much longer she could even stay on her feet. Between the current need to mentally center and the previous injection of a sedative followed by a stimulant, not to mention the traumatic interrogation session during which she had attempted unsuccessfully more than once to sever her sensory connection with Solo, she was beyond simple fatigue. She was struggling for every mental exercise and every bodily movement, and sooner or later she would be much too drained to continue that struggle.

A trio of Section II agents entered the commissary. Delphina recognized Natasha Kuryakin among the group. The three separated, making a complete recognizance of the area. Apparently they weren't there for coffee. She watched them warily, keeping her position close to her current quarry.

The enforcement agents regrouped.

Natasha whispered to Kyle Walters, "She's here. Just behind Mary Calvarant."

"You're sure?" whispered back Kyle.

"As sure as I can be under the circumstances," Natasha answered, keeping her voice purposely soft and her manner casual. It wouldn't do for it to appear as if she was passing any special intelligence to the other agents in this situation. "There's an odd spectrum of light that keeps catching my eye briefly from that direction."

"Guess we provide the prism for the ultimate breakdown of that wave of light then," quietly commented Alfred Van Niels, the third member of the team.

Kyle nodded shortly. Then the senior agent withdrew his communicator from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, clicked it into position to use the bio-drone connection and scanned the area with the pen.

"No sign?" questioned Alfred in a normal conversational level of voice.

Kyle shook his head in seeming frustration. "Not so much as a beep."

Just then the pen sounded a normal communication two-tone. Kyle, whose supposed use of the pen's bio-drone detector had actually been a signal to Solo and Kuryakin that the quarry had been spotted, clicked the pen into proper receive mode. "Walters."

"Have you spotted our migrating thrushbird, Mr. Walters?" Solo spoke through the holographic image.

"No luck yet, sir," admitted Walters, his eyes secretly telling a different story. "The bio-drone doesn't seem to be working properly and it's making it difficult…"

"We understand that, Mr. Walters," Illya now interjected. "We are going to attempt a spontaneous down and restart of the bio-drone system to hopefully eliminate that difficulty."

"That would be enormously helpful, sir," acknowledged Kyle.

"Proceed to the bio-drone server room: Corridor E, Level 3," Solo now ordered. "Your team is to provide security protection during the down. The building will remain in complete lockdown mode in the meanwhile."

_"Complete lockdown mode," thought Delphina. "No wonder I could find no one leaving the premises."_

"Understood, sir. Walters out."

And it was in that moment that Delphina made her decision. If she couldn't currently get away from U.N.C.L.E., then she would at least get that for which she had originally come: the schematics of the bio-drone. There was going to be a spontaneous down. The core would be dumped. She was wearing the light manipulation suit. She had lucisorqe in her hair dye that just needed activation by deoxygenation of her blood. The server room used an oxygen depletion system to combat fires. Enforcement agents carried guns. Bullets could spark a fire in electronic equipment. And she could get inside the server room in the wake of this trio.

Kyle clicked off his communicator, pocketed it and nodded to his team. Natasha made a small, seemingly ordinary gesture indicating she believed Delphina to now be directly behind them. The three exited from the commissary and made their way to the ordered position, leading Delphina, like a throat-parched animal to water, toward Phase II of the trap.

* * *

Security alert klaxons were again emitting their ear-splitting wail as Delphina ran down the various Level 3 corridors of U.N.C.L.E. She was sure they had been manually activated as it was impossible for the bio-drone to be this soon again up-and-running. Still, it was fortunate the bio-drone server room was located on the same level as the private office of the Number 1 in Section I as it meant she had no recalcitrant elevators to try and negotiate. With HQ in lockdown, getting through the corridors on one level was enough of a challenge. Security was everywhere. Fortunately the guards and cameras couldn't see her in the suit.

Her destination was that private office of the Number 1 in Section I. She had no clue how she would get into that office, but she knew using the fifth entrance out of headquarters was her only option. So she ran, sometimes careening into walls as her bone-weary body battled her at every turn.

She wasn't sure what had possessed her to try for the image of the bio-drone schematics. It had been a crazy idea with the physical exhaustion she had already been experiencing at that point. But it was an idea which had taken over every neuron in her brain, enough that she wondered to some extent if her connection with Solo had been at least in part responsible for the obsession. It could have been a trap; it likely had been a trap. Yet she had managed the crazily impossible and gotten at least a partial image of the bio-drone core dump.

She had followed the Section II agents of the protection team into the server room. She had waited until the techs had initiated the spontaneous down of the bio-drone server. Then she had grabbed the gun from the Dutch agent, knowing she was exposing herself in doing so, shot at an electrical panel she had already noted by the techs' actions had to do with monitoring of the room's temperature and ignited a spark that caused the panel to billow out black smoke. Dropping the gun as fast as possible, she had moved away from the trio of Section II agents to an oblique angle facing the server monitor. From there she hoped she could still get the image imbedded into the powdered lucisorqe coating of the suit without being in a direct line that would make it too easy for the agents to locate her.

As she silently prayed, the oxygen depletion cycle triggered by the smoking panel initiated. The other humans departed the room as it sealed. After a few moments she felt the cold burn of the lucisorqe within her hair dye as it separated from the other concoctions in that coloring and began to leach into her body through the pores of her scalp. She had forgotten how much concentration it took to fight off the disorienting effects of the lucisorqe. Already weary, she was mentally wrestling for focus, tears of frustration streaming unseen and unheeded down her face, sweat coating every inch of her skin, panting for every drawn breath, completely uncertain she could manage to successfully function another five minutes.

It was then she felt the cool breeze as the oxygen depletion cycle was reversed and the air returned to a normal mix of gases within the room. And the "spontaneous" down of the bio-drone was just as spontaneously aborted.

The pneumatic door unlocked and slid open. The protection team scrambled in and she pushed past them, knocking one of the men into the wall, and started her wild flight to... To the only surety she had known since the death of her father. Back to Niles… and Thrush.

She had no clue how much information had been captured by the lucisorqe coating of the suit. She had no clue if she could make it out of here to even find out if that for which she had risked so much was worth anything at all. She was running strictly on instinct now, the instinct to flee since she had not the energy to fight.

Turning the next corner, she recognized the outer entrance to Solo's office. His assistant sat at her usual desk and standing near that desk was Illya Kuryakin. He was saying something to the woman, but Delphina didn't bother to try and hear what it was. Instead she attempted to control her panting, not wanting to give away her position now when she was so close. Kuryakin, she was sure, would return to Napoleon's office and that would be her chance – her only chance with headquarters in lockdown mode – to herself get inside that office.

Illya turned and walked toward the pneumatic door of the Continental Chief's office, punching in the security override code on the keypad. The door slid into its wall channel, he moved inside and Delphina burst through the open portal immediately on his heels, knocking him flat as she fell atop him and the door automatically shut behind them both.

At her desk, Jenny took a deep breath, flipped on a channel on her communications panel and reported to the Security Chief, "Trap fully sprung. Stand by in case of emergency."

* * *

Inside the office, the prone Illya wrestled with the invisible Thrush. He wrenched open the zipper of the hood on the light manipulation suit, exposing Delphina's face and head. As they struggled, the body zipper of the suit inched slowly downward, and Delphina's frantic gyrations as she attempted to free herself from Kuryakin's hold resulted in her arms and shoulders and then her torso being released from the material. As she struggled with surely solitary anguish, Delphina let out involuntary keening sounds that, though he would never admit it to anyone, all but broke Napoleon's heart.

Rousing himself from his stunned inaction, Napoleon made his way to the battling pair.

"Come on, Illya; you're not thirty anymore. Stop trying the hand-to-hand method of convincing the lady and instead let her up so we can negotiate like reasonable older gentlemen."

With a grunt, Illya pulled himself slowly to his feet via the aid of Napoleon's hand. And then Napoleon offered that same helping hand to Delphina. She gazed at him warily, panting from all the physical exertion and the recent lack of oxygen, hair plastered to her scalp and against her face by sweat and pearlescent strands of lucisorqe, eyes ringed with dark hollows. She looked far removed from the coolly controlled woman who had stole her way into this office a little more than two weeks ago.

After a minute or so, Delphina accepted the proffered hand and rose to her feet. The light manipulation suit, zipper now completely undone, dropped to floor around her. Napoleon took hold of her shoulders and moved her so her feet were released from the thin material as well. Illya reached down and picked up the suit, rolling it into a tight package as Napoleon guided Delphina further into the room, near the chairs around the desk.

Napoleon unbuttoned and removed his suit coat and drew it gently over Delphina's arms to cover her naked body. Illya realized immediately the mistake his friend had made. Taking off the jacket put his gun in its shoulder holster not only in Delphina's ready view, but also within her easy reach. In the blink of an eye that gun was out of Napoleon's holster and in Delphina's hand. She stood holding them both at bay with Solo's lifted semi-automatic, her face unreadable but her eyes surprisingly steady.

"You said you've never killed anyone," Illya reminded her with complete composure.

"There is a first time for everything," Delphina countered in her best attempt at a fully controlled tone of voice.

"So much for your promise that nothing you did would permanently damage Napoleon," challenged Illya in a hard tone.

"It was never a promise; just a simple statement of fact. But I've made no such statement regarding my permanently damaging you, Mr. Kuryakin," she declared bluntly as she aimed the semi-automatic straight at Illya.

"Come now, Delphina," Napoleon, having noticed a slight unsteadiness in her hand, wooed in a gentle voice. "You know this cannot work. If you attempt to shoot Illya, I will put myself between him and your bullet."

Delphina's hand began to shake more noticeably. Perfect control of mind and body had truly abandoned her and she was straining to keep any semblance of her usual composed manner.

"It seems we are at an impasse," she forwarded to Napoleon after a few moments of silence accented the nature of the stalemate. "You will not risk Mr. Kuryakin, and I will not risk you."

"There is always a way through, Delphina," Solo assured her as he drew even closer to her. "U.N.C.L.E. could arrange a new identity for you. Relocate you into a new life."

"I am not your responsibility!" shouted out Delphina testily, the last vestiges of hard-won control creeping away from her.

"You'll have to forgive Napoleon his assumptions on that score," shot back Illya with steady eyes and particular intent. Napoleon had not given him any advance warning that he was prepared to offer Delphina this type of deal, and Illya was far less than pleased by this latest evidence of his partner's emotional connection with the Thrush. "It seems he has become so entrenched in his position as the guiding force of U.N.C.L.E., that he tends to believe humanity as a whole is solely his responsibility."

Whether Illya had meant the remark strictly as sarcasm for Napoleon's benefit or not, the point nonetheless hit home with Delphina. Defeatedly, she sat down in a nearby chair, letting the gun lay loosely on her lap as she held it in a lax grip. Her body was visibly shaking now, all pretense of control gone. It would be the perfect moment, Illya thought, to draw his own sleep-dart loaded weapon and put an end to this standoff. Yet that wouldn't accomplish what this whole elaborate trap had been set up to do. As well, even a sleep dart might prove lethal to Delphina at this point, and that had never been part of the plan either.

Instinctively Illya knew that, because of the singular circumstances, his friend wanted to handle this particular dilemma entirely on his own. It was brave. It was reckless. It was utterly Napoleon. And Illya found himself trusting in his friend's instinct at this critical moment as he had during so many other critical moments in the past.

"Don't you understand?" the Thrush technological residual asked in a very quiet voice directly of Napoleon. "So much has been taken from you because of me; I won't allow myself to become your responsibility now."

"And whose responsibility are you, Delphina?" Napoleon queried of her just as quietly.

Delphina smiled wryly.

"I exist as I am because of the passions of two very different men," she put forth candidly. "My father had a dream of me as the vanguard of a whole new world, a being to be held in awe and treated with respect. It was a dream that became a nightmare. My lover has a vision of me as a one-of-a-kind possession, a being to be shared with no one and understood by no one but himself. It is a vision that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Neither of them ever intended for me to become through that dream or that vision less a part of the humanity to which you feel such responsibility, Napoleon. Yet what I am will always make it necessary for me to avoid the communal schools of fish and instead swim with the solitary sharks. For I do want to survive. Like any living being, I so want to survive."

Napoleon squatted on his haunches in front of her chair, easily taking the gun from her hand as he inquired soothingly, "So what do you suggest as a solution to this impasse, Delphina?"

Her gaze found his and held it steadily, hazel-brown eyes to matching hazel-brown eyes.

"Let me go the way I came," she answered straightforwardly.

"We can't do that," Illya interjected.

"Yes, you can," Delphina directed her response to Illya. "I'll put on the suit and make my way back outside your world. You can claim I forced the issue at gunpoint and no one will be the wiser."

"We know the suit likely holds a sensory impression of the bio-drone core dump, madam," Illya bluntly asserted. "And we know that is exactly what Ospreye and the rest of the Thrush Council sent you here to get."

"But it's the core dump from an incomplete down," supplied Delphina. "And you and I both know, Mr. Kuryakin, that it was as well purposely skewed in some way. I don't know exactly how, but I'm not a fool. So in the end, Thrush is getting only a piece of what it wants. And likely a very small piece, since I have no certainty I can fully interpret the sensory impression stored in the suit. This is all very untried science."

Delphina turned back to Solo.

"So what say you, Napoleon? Remember I once asked what sacrifices you would make in the interests of U.N.C.L.E.'s science? The question needs answered now. If I provide Thrush with this piece of what they want, they will have a use for me in interpreting the sensory impression of the bio-drone core dump, a task that could take months, or even years to complete. Niles will thus consider it foolhardy to risk sending me again in close contact with you, and the peril of further sensory communion between us, with all its uncharted possibilities and pitfalls, will be a dead issue."

Napoleon's gaze centered solely on hers. She was still the little girl who didn't know what questions to ask. She didn't even realize he would be sacrificing nothing as the down had been a core dump of the retired bio-drone software, retired because it had failed more often than it had succeeded. And that the "skewing" she suspected was much more intricately plotted than she likely would ever imagine.

He felt the sting of regret that, in the final analysis, he would be using her as surely as was Thrush. Using her to plant false information with, as well as gain a specific advantage over, U.N.C.L.E.'s foremost adversary. His empathy for her was still very real and hammered painfully at the emotional workings of his soft heart. Yet there was no other true resolution to the threat she posed him and through him U.N.C.L.E. itself, and this way out was in the end her own suggestion.

"All right, Delphina," he acquiesced slowly, "we'll conclude these 'clinical trials' your way. Give her the suit, Illya," Solo instructed his second-in-command.

Passing Delphina a deadly look, Illya did as bid.

Standing after accepting the garment from Kuryakin's hand, Delphina pushed up on tiptoe momentarily and leaned into Solo.

"Dance with me, Napoleon," she entreated close to his ear, "dance with me just one more time."

Understanding her meaning, Solo nodded as Illya pressed his lips together in a tight line. Of course Delphina's leaving through the Continental Chief's private entrance required her accessing Napoleon's sensory input to successfully navigate the tunnel maze. He had forgotten about that and he found the prospect of Delphina delving even but one more time into the sensory synapses of his friend a good deal less than pleasing. Biting his lip, Illya watched in stony silence as his former partner sat down in his usual chair and Delphina leaned over and kissed him gently on the outside corner of each of his eyes. Then she slipped out of Napoleon's jacket and once more donned the light manipulation suit.

"I'm ready," she spoke out, though she was no longer visible to the two men in the room.

Without a word, Solo turned to the right the gem in the ring on his left pinky finger and the portal opened to the darkness of the twisting warrens beyond.

"Ha et godt liv, min sølvhårede sjel med de varme, brune øyne," Delphina's voice floated out to them just before Solo turned the gem in the ring to the left and forever closed himself off from her dually exhilarating and disturbing presence.  
{Translation: A sweet life, my silver-haired soul with the warm brown eyes.}

* * *

_**Four months later  
the Manhattan headquarters of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement…**_

Napoleon Solo bestowed one of his most brilliant smiles upon the two agents seated across the huge revolving desk from him.

"I understand that today you passed the final certification for your return to field status, Jack. Glad to have you back on active duty."

"Thank you, sir," replied Jack Valdar with a small smile of his own. "Truly glad to be back."

The road to this day had not been an easy one. Even after the nearly a month it took the lucisorqe to fully dissipate from Jack's bloodstream, the neural re-routing the mineral had begun of his sensory synapses had required rigorous retraining to fully defeat. He had undergone some days of relapsing to almost complete sensory confusion, and he had needed every ounce of his mental and physical endurance to keep moving forward in his recovery.

Through it all, through every triumph and every disappointment along the way, Natasha had stayed steady at Jack's side, offering encouragement or lending an understanding ear. She never let his frustrated brooding on the bad days send her packing. Neither did she let his euphoric over-confidence on the good days lull her into complacency. Whenever anyone had the audacity to inquire of her as to why she remained so rock-solid behind the often irritating 'Granite Slab' (since certainly the two hadn't exactly started out as each other's biggest fan), she had plainly replied: "He's my partner."

That simple statement had made Napoleon more proud of his goddaughter than he had ever been before in his life (and he had taken pride in her myriad times in the past). She was truly Illya's daughter in every fiber of her being, and that was something uniquely special. No one knew that better than Napoleon Solo.

"I've summoned you both here to discuss something else, however," Napoleon got to the point of the meeting. "Ms. Kuryakin has made a request regarding your partnership."

Jack instinctively straightened in his chair.

"She has asked that it be re-designated from temporary status to permanent."

Natasha eyed Jack askance as she lowered her head to keep from ready view the secret smile attempting to upwardly curve her lips.

"I see no reason not to approve this re-designation," continued the Continental Chief, "but as senior agent of the pair, as well as North American CEA, the final choice in this is yours, Mr. Valdar."

"No hard feelings if your decision is against, Jack," put in Natasha quickly. "You have every right and undoubtedly good reasons to want a more experienced field partner."

Without hesitation Jack stuck out his hand to the 'rookie agent'. "Pleased to have you guarding my back… Tash."

Natasha's broad grin, as she eagerly reached for Jack's extended hand and formally shook it, was bright enough to light up all of Times' Square.

_"Definitely got this one right, Solo," Napoleon mentally congratulated himself._

"I'll have the re-designation confirmed today," Solo stated, "and your first assignment as a permanent team tomorrow. A few more details need to fall into place before I fully brief you on that mission, but I can tell you now that it involves someone already known to you both: Gennadiy Yunusov."

Jack's jaw clenched, but he gave no other reaction.

"Do we get to push him blithely into hell?" queried the more vocal Natasha.

"Hopefully purgatory at least," said Napoleon. "It seems he has gotten himself into some serious trouble with both the Finnish and Russian authorities by attempting to transport lucisorqe, a declared bio-hazard, across the border between those two countries."

"And we can take a very educated guess on what nasty bird financed that particular operation," Natasha noted with a snicker.

"That we can," agreed Napoleon. "Yet we need for Yunusov to provide us much more than speculation. For the moment, however, go enjoy the day off. It probably will be the last one you'll get for a while. Dismissed."

The two agents rose, each with an acknowledging nod. As they made their way out the pneumatic door, Napoleon heard Natasha wheedling, "Come on, Jack, it's just a double date. I like Alicia and you'll like Richard, so…" The voice faded away as Illya, newspaper in hand, entered the office and the door closed behind him.

"Why does that sound faintly familiar?" he asked Napoleon with a jerk of his head toward the now closed door.

"I haven't the vaguest idea," teased Napoleon with a small laugh.

"I take it Mr. Valdar agreed to making the partnership permanent?" asked Illya as he made his way to his usual chair.

"Without hesitation."

"Have you seen this article in today's Times?" Illya questioned as he pointed the newspaper he held in Napoleon's direction.

"What article is that?"

Illya slipped his glasses from the pocket of his suit coat and settled them on his nose.

"Niles Ospreye announced yesterday at a meeting of the board of The Ospreye Technical Research Foundation of which he is founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer," read Illya from the half-folded newspaper, "that the Manhattan headquarters of the foundation is to be permanently closed and a new headquarters opened in Bergen, Norway.

"In a subsequent release to the press, Mr. Ospreye noted: _Since the fire caused by a sabotaged generator within the basement level of the foundation-owned building several months ago, followed hard upon by the still unsolved murder of my valued longtime administrative assistant, Ms. Celeste Aimes, the will to return to my pursuit of bettering the human condition through scientific research had left me. Now restored in body, mind and heart by my new wife, I am ready to take up that pursuit once more, but still find a change of venue necessary for my peace of mind._

"_Norway is my wife's native country and I look forward to experiencing it through her eyes. Together we will strive toward making the foundation in its new incarnation even more of a beacon of technology than previously._

"There's a supplemental paragraph explaining that Ospreye's marriage to Delphina Reikedahl took place a couple of weeks ago in a civil ceremony," summarized Illya. "And that the current Mrs. Ospreye was once the subject of experiments funded by the foundation, but from which the foundation formerly separated itself when questions were raised as to the ethics of that particular research. It says as well that Ospreye 'long sought' Ms. Reikedahl to 'personally right however possible the wrong of any suffering she experienced during that research', and that 'her courage, spirit and unique beauty' immediately captivated his heart once he finally found her.

"I'm amazed at the Times publishing such tripe," concluded Illya as he placed the daily on the revolving desk.

Napoleon shrugged. "The loss of a multi-million dollar business in Manhattan does qualify as news, though that supplemental paragraph does seem somewhat on the tripe-ish side."

"I never asked you when that news first came out, Napoleon, but were you surprised he married her? Brought his relationship with her out in the open?"

"Not in the least. Ospreye is one smart Thrush and nowadays Delphina likely has surer standing in the organization than he does."

"How long do you think before any of them figure out that, if they construct a bio-drone expanding directly off those partial schematics imaged in the suit, they will actually be giving our own bio-drone imperfect but still potentially useful bio-magnetic access to the location of Thrush personnel?"

"Hopefully not for a long time, Illya. Hopefully not for a very long time."

"It was a big risk, Napoleon."

"A calculated risk," was all the response Napoleon deigned to give.

They were silent for some minutes and then Illya ventured to mention something of which they purposefully had not spoken since that incident four months ago.

"You really scared us that night, Napoleon. And for that entire week after."

"I scared myself," admitted the other man.

"Why did you hang on to the sensory connection like that? After she was gone from here?"

"Because I knew she wasn't strong enough to make it on her own, Illya. She was sick and sore and in dire need of sleep. Her sensory synapses were re-routing and she didn't have enough mental focus to halt the process. If I had let the connection break, as it naturally would have once she got a good physical distance away from me, she wouldn't have survived… or at least wouldn't have survived intact."

He had lent her the intensity of his senses, letting them provide the stabilizing balance to help keep her own senses in proper synaptic rhythm. He wasn't sure if she realized what he had done. It really didn't matter if she had. He had needed to do it for his own peace of mind, to please his own conscience.

It had been strange sensing things that weren't actually happening around him, but were happening around her. It was not a phenomenon he could ever accurately explain to anyone who had never experienced it themselves. For the first time taking control of that sensory connection between himself and Delphina, he had been caught off-guard by the myriad of sensations invoked. It was exhilarating and depressing at the same time. It was disorienting; it was enlightening. It was distracting; it was all-engrossing. It made you feel caught somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. It was draining; it was invigorating. And it was intensely painful in a manner that yet teased at pleasure. It was an adrenaline high that somehow inexplicably tied an overwhelming sense of euphoria to those very piercing needles of sensation keeping unbroken the thread of a sensory connection stretched thin by distance sent as warnings into the brain. Thus it presented the possibility of an addiction at which he was positive even Reikedahl in his wildest speculations had never guessed.

Napoleon was grateful that Niles Ospreye had been obviously intent on keeping his mistress alive and whole. Finding her, light manipulation suit discarded in a corner in favor of one of his trench coats, shivering in the closet of his penthouse in the foundation building, he had been quick to tend to her physical condition. He had procured an oxygen tank from the public lab of his building and immediately set about getting her blood oxygen level raised. She had been panic-stricken, all but incoherent in her constant demand he keep her away from Solo. He had calmed her, stayed constantly with her through several days of intensive medical treatment, and soothingly assured her Thrush would never ask her to make contact with Solo again. If Delphina was this man's obsession, he was at least not fickle in his fixation. And for that reason alone Niles Ospreye forever insured himself of Napoleon Solo's respect, even though they were enemies whose overreaching moral viewpoints directly opposed one other.

Only after three nights and two days, only after Delphina seemed to be regaining her own amazing mental and physical resilience and Napoleon had to admit he was losing too much of his in this particular effort, only then did Napoleon finally break the tenuous sensory hold with Delphina. Yet that break itself had resulted in a kind of withdrawal that presented severe symptoms: sporadic convulsions, brain inflammation, and bouts of temporary dysphasia. Finally after three more days of this nerve-wracking situation, Napoleon's condition had stabilized. U.N.C.L.E.'s medical personnel had breathed a collective sigh of relief as physical improvement followed with surprising quickness.

Gremier attempted to question Solo on the particulars of what had happened, but it soon became apparent the Continental Chief had no intention of answering any such questions. He simply claimed not to remember any specifics and, since none of the doctors had any previous experience with this unique set of circumstances, not one of them could counterclaim he was being purposely evasive. But Illya knew better.

"What you did could have cost you your life. Or perhaps your own sensory fitness. You didn't owe her that, you know," Illya made his point succinctly.

"You accused me of believing humanity as a whole solely my moral responsibility, Illya," Napoleon reminded him. "That's a bit extreme but… well, perhaps I did feel a certain moral responsibility in this case."

"What you felt was empathy for an isolated soul, Napoleon," corrected Illya. "I understand. Believe me, I do. But all the empathy in the world really couldn't make her any less isolated because, when push came to shove, she chose that isolation."

Napoleon sighed. "I suppose that's true. But my heart still bleeds for her."

Just then Jenny made her way into the office through the pneumatic door. She looked a little less than completely collected as she walked close to her superior's chair.

"What is it, Jenny?" questioned Solo at he looked up at the woman now standing beside him.

"This letter was hand-delivered for you by private courier, sir, from the Ospreye Technical Research Foundation," said the assistant as she extended a cream-colored envelope to Napoleon. "It's been checked and double-checked for anything suspicious and there doesn't seem to be anything."

"Well then, I guess I'll just have to read it to find out what it's all about."

"Yes sir," acknowledged Jenny, though she didn't look entirely pleased with that prospect.

"Don't worry, Jenny," teased Napoleon with a mischievous wink as he took the envelope from the hand of his secretary. "Mr. Kuryakin is here to protect me from any nefarious posts."

Illya snorted. With a sigh, Jenny retreated back to her own desk beyond the pneumatic door.

"Handwritten," noted Napoleon as he opened the single sheet of matching cream-hued stationary that slipped from the paper sleeve. His eyes scanned the missive, taking in more than the literal meaning of the words.

_My undeniably dear Napoleon,_

_Let me remind you at this moment of our current parting of what you once told me of your own philosophy of life as we walked in near companionship in Central Park: Abandon what is bad from the past, relish what is good, and always live in the moment._

_The moment between us is now past, Napoleon. And I admit to enough self-conceit to hope you found in it something worth the relishing. For that brief span of time the eternal separateness of the human condition was bridged between us. It was that of which my father dreamt, though you must forgive him his more pragmatic exploitation of his dream. I pray you forgive me such as well, but sometimes surviving in this world requires holding tight a single-minded and practical rein on the all too enticing and thoroughly intoxicating expansiveness of dreams._

_Let me conclude by assuring you I long ago learned what questions should not be asked._

_Delphina_

_P.S.: Tell your ever wary and unerringly loyal partner I rise like Osiris, having been returned to near-perfect vigor through the loving intervention of Isis. I doubt not he will understand._

A small smile played itself over Napoleon's lips.

"What is it?"

Napoleon placed the letter on the revolving desk and spun it in position before the other man. Illya lifted the note, silence filling the room for a few minutes as he read its contents.

"And do you understand, Illya?" inquired Napoleon once Illya's expression gave notice he had finished the entirety of the letter.

"That the world is full of wonders?" questioned Illya in turn. "Surely that I do, my friend. Surely that I do."

Then both men smiled easily, an ease borne of years of friendship and trust. Nothing had ever broken that between them and nothing ever would.

_**--THE END--**_


End file.
